Key Takeaways
- Coppermine Health and Fitness is investing $8 million to build a soccer academy on the former Cardinal Gibbons School campus in Southwest Baltimore
- The facility will feature four synthetic turf fields and indoor training space, serving as Coppermine’s soccer headquarters
- The project coincides with Coppermine’s promotion to MLS NEXT’s Allstate Homegrown Division and a new joint venture with Orlegi Sports
- The 32-acre campus is the historic site where Babe Ruth learned baseball at St. Mary’s Industrial School
- Coppermine now operates 21 facilities across Maryland, serving more than 25,000 families
A Purpose-Built Soccer Campus on Historic Ground
Coppermine Health and Fitness plans to invest $8 million to build a dedicated soccer academy on the former Cardinal Gibbons School campus in Southwest Baltimore. The facility will serve as the organization’s soccer headquarters and feature four synthetic turf fields along with indoor training facilities.
Coppermine already manages Cardinal Gibbons Field at the site, located at 941 to 985 S. Caton Avenue in Baltimore’s Morrell Park neighborhood. The 32-acre campus was originally home to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, established in 1866, where Babe Ruth lived from 1902 to 1914 and first learned to play baseball. Cardinal Gibbons School opened on the site in 1962 as a private Catholic college prep school before closing in 2010.
The $8 million commitment represents Coppermine’s largest single soccer infrastructure investment to date.
Orlegi Partnership and MLS NEXT Promotion Add Professional Pathways
The facility announcement arrived alongside two other significant developments for the club.
On March 31, Coppermine and Orlegi Sports announced a joint venture called “Coppermine Soccer, Powered by Orlegi Sports.” Orlegi is a global sports management group that owns and operates Club Santos Laguna and Atlas FC in Mexico’s Liga MX, along with Real Sporting de Gijón in Spain’s La Liga 2. The partnership integrates Orlegi’s coaching methodologies and international network into Coppermine’s youth development programs, creating player pathways to professional environments in Mexico and Spain.
Earlier in March, MLS NEXT announced that Coppermine was one of five clubs promoted from the Academy Division to the Allstate Homegrown Division, the platform’s top competitive tier, for the 2026-27 season. Coppermine had joined MLS NEXT’s Academy Division only for the 2025-26 season, making the rapid promotion notable.
Together, these moves give Coppermine players access to both a domestic MLS pipeline and international professional pathways, a combination rarely seen at the independent club level.
Building Scale Across Maryland
Coppermine now operates 21 facilities across Maryland, serving more than 25,000 families. The soccer club, established in 2014, serves over 1,000 families across three Maryland regions: Central (Baltimore), North (Harford County), and West (Carroll County). Key soccer venues include CopperPlex in Harford County, Norris Field, Du Burns Arena, and the Coppermine Sports Center.
Founder Alex Jacobs started the company in 2011 with a single 42,000-square-foot fieldhouse near the historic Bare Hills copper mine that gave the brand its name. The organization also runs Coppermine United, a women’s semi-professional team competing in United Women’s Soccer.
What It Means for Youth Soccer Infrastructure
The Cardinal Gibbons project fits a broader pattern of independent operators investing in dedicated, purpose-built soccer facilities rather than renting shared municipal or school fields. For Coppermine, centralizing operations at a single campus gives the club control over scheduling, programming, and the training environment across its development tiers.
The convergence of facility ownership, MLS credentialing, and an international partnership with a Liga MX ownership group creates a vertically integrated model more commonly associated with MLS club academies than independent operators. It raises the competitive bar for player recruitment across the Mid-Atlantic region.
No construction timeline or opening date has been publicly disclosed.
Source: Coppermine Soccer Club, March 31, 2026; BusinessWire, March 31, 2026; MLS NEXT, March 9, 2026,
Photos: Business Wire IG
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Coppermine invests $8M to convert Baltimore’s historic Cardinal Gibbons School into a four-field soccer academy, pairing the facility with an Orlegi Sports joint venture and MLS NEXT Homegrown promotion.
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