The site was formerly
Fort Dent Park, operated by
King County. In addition to the existing grass soccer fields, the park included a
cricket pitch and softball fields in the areas now occupied by artificial-surface soccer fields. That offer sparked the formation of Starfire Sports by Slatt, Steve Beck, and Mark Bickham, who negotiated a 40-year lease with Tukwila to allow them to build and operate the complex. The deal would relieve the city of an estimated $500,000 in annual maintenance costs which would likely have caused it to refuse the county's offer had Starfire not stepped in. The original plan for the facility was to build a 2,500-seat stadium that could host the
Seattle Sounders, then a second-division team; the Sounders requested a stadium with at least 5,000 seats. New construction included four lighted outdoor soccer fields with
FieldTurf, including the stadium with its 2000-seat grandstand, along with the indoor facility. Beginning in summer 2004, English
Premier League powerhouse
Manchester United offered training at Starfire as part of their Soccer Schools program. This came to an end in December 2007. In the late 2000s, the complex was proposed as the site of a larger 28,000-seat venue that would host a
Major League Soccer expansion team. Starfire was instead chosen as the training grounds for the expansion team awarded to
Seattle Sounders FC. The city of Tukwila still maintains a wooded part of the site as a public park. An expansion was unanimously approved by city leaders in a public hearing at the beginning of 2008 for the offices and training facilities of Seattle Sounders FC. The team's practice fields replaced four existing softball fields on the campus. ==Facilities==