by KYW’s David Madden

Owners of a planned Major League Soccer franchise in the Philadelphia area are moving ahead with work for their opening day in a year and a half. First up is building a new 18,000 seat soccer stadium along the Delaware River in Chester.

T.N. Ward contractors, based in Ardmore, will be responsible for bringing in the stadium on time, by April of 2010, and on budget -- $115 million. And most of the construction jobs will go to locals, too.

Keystone Sports and Entertainment CEO Nick Sakiewicz, owners of the yet to be named franchise, says he’s having no problem getting $50 seat deposits from fans.

“About 30% of the stadium is already accounted for in season tickets. We’ve blown past 5,000 thousand deposits already.”

And that’s in just six months. Most of those seats are taken up on one end of the field by the so-called “Sons of Ben”, a group of diehard soccer fans who lobbied the league long and hard to bring the franchise here.