Michael Coleman Featured in Columbus Dispatch: "Former Mayor Michael B. Coleman Helped Crew Owners Move Stadium Deal Forward"

Ice Miller partner Michael Coleman was featured in the Columbus Dispatch article, "Former Mayor Michael B. Coleman Helped Crew Owners Move Stadium Deal Forward."

The article included:

Negotiations between Crew SC and the city of Columbus for a new downtown stadium and surrounding mixed-use project were dragging behind schedule, city costs were close to double what the leaders had publicly pledged and at least one city administrator was voicing concern over what the public was being asked to fund.

It was against this backdrop that on March 4 the Crew decided it needed a lobbyist: former Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman.

“This deal was extremely complex, so when you’re out in the weeds, you want to have as many friends with you as you can because you don’t know what you’re going to find,” Dr. Pete Edwards, now a part-owner of the Crew, said about hiring Coleman.

Details on what Coleman was paid and what he accomplished are not available. But it’s clear that he entered the fray late in the game, three months after a public-private deal to build the stadium was struck, and just as emails show growing city costs were beginning to become an internal topic.

Click here to read the full article.