Price for a Green Card: $500,000 Stadium Stake

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/sports/soccer/orlando-soccer-stadium-foreign-investors-visas.html

ORLANDO, Fla. — For years, sports teams have tried to defray the multimillion-dollar costs of their new stadiums by asking fans to pay thousands for personal seat licenses that entitle them to buy season tickets.

Flávio Augusto da Silva is taking the concept further. In what may be the first deal of its kind, Mr. da Silva, the majority owner of Orlando City of Major League Soccer, is asking investors from Brazil, China and elsewhere to pay $500,000 each for a stake in the stadium he is building near downtown Orlando. In return, the foreign investors receive annual dividends, two season tickets and something even more valuable: a green card that allows them, their spouses and sometimes even their children to live and work in the United States.

The visa offer is legal, and it uses a 25-year-old federal program, known as EB-5, that is under renewed scrutiny in Congress. Created in 1990, the program was intended to help pay for infrastructure projects in rural areas and poor urban neighborhoods. After bank lending dried up in the last recession, developers turned to the program to finance hotels, condominiums and other projects from Manhattan to Miami. As a result, the number of EB-5 visas awarded grew to almost 9,000 last year, from fewer than 100 in 2003.

Mr. da Silva, though, is building a $156 million stadium, not a high-rise building or a shopping mall, and he is marketing to foreigners not because lending is tight, but because lawmakers in Florida would not provide subsidies for the stadium in the Parramore neighborhood of Orlando.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Dude!

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Dude!

Fancy a stadium seat, Jacque?

[Dakine10 5,452]

I thought EB-5 investors had to create 10 new jobs. That's a lot to ask from American soccer.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Fancy a stadium seat, Jacque?

Not all I fancy, darlin

[Rob L 3,811]

I thought EB-5 investors had to create 10 new jobs. That's a lot to ask from American soccer.

To obtain the visa, individuals must invest $1,000,000 (or at least $500,000 in a Targeted Employment Area - high unemployment or rural area), creating or preserving at least 10 jobs for U.S. workers excluding the investor and their immediate family.

So all those partime hotdog vendor jobs, they count

[Rob L 3,811]

I thought EB-5 investors had to create 10 new jobs. That's a lot to ask from American soccer.

luv my Sounders

( although I have not gone this year, yet)

[Boiler 45,294]

A Football team has 11 players. Plus reserves.

The way these things work EB5 investors are at the bottom of the pile and are effectively buying a GC, probably never see money back or dividends.

[Dakine10 5,452]

To obtain the visa, individuals must invest $1,000,000 (or at least $500,000 in a Targeted Employment Area - high unemployment or rural area), creating or preserving at least 10 jobs for U.S. workers excluding the investor and their immediate family.

So all those partime hotdog vendor jobs, they count

Looks like construction jobs can count as permanent jobs nowadays. That's a change from back in the day, but it's still 10 jobs per investor. Players and vendors who are already employed by the current team/stadium wouldn't count without getting creative.

A Football team has 11 players. Plus reserves.

The way these things work EB5 investors are at the bottom of the pile and are effectively buying a GC, probably never see money back or dividends.

At least they get the 2 season tickets, FWIW.