New York City Football Club to Build $780 Million Stadium in Queens
New York City Football Club (NYCFC), last year’s Major League Soccer (MLS) Champions, received permission from the city to build a stadium near Citi Field in Willets Point, Queens. The stadium will be a 25,000-seater built on 23 acres of city-owned land.
While the stadium will be the main attraction of the project, a 250-room hotel and 2,500 units of housing will also be built nearby to accompany the stadium. The development is projected to cost approximately $780 million. It will be privately funded by NYCFC, which has been looking to build a stadium of its own since 2012.
This stadium will be historic as it will be the first time a professional soccer team builds a stadium in New York City. It will also be the biggest major sport development in the city since 2012. The project is the biggest economic development initiative under the Adams Administration.
“Queens, which is the world’s borough, now will become the home of soccer, which is the world’s sport,” Maria Torres-Springer, the deputy mayor for economic and workforce development, said on Tuesday, November 15th.
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The stadium will be completed in 2027 according to city officials. It will be built on city-owned land and NYCFC will pay a lease of $4 million a year for 49 years. The soccer team will have the option of extending the lease by 25 years.
The building of the stadium will ensure NYCFC has a permanent home to play their games. This will create convenience for fans and spectators of the team. Since 2012, NYCFC has been forced to play in a variety of stadiums including Yankee Stadium, which was not designed for soccer.
The development was welcomed by Don Garber, the commissioner of MLS. “This is just another step toward this vision that we want our clubs to be embedded in the community that’s accessible to fans,” Garber said of the new stadium.
The New York City Football Club is owned by City Football Group and Yankee Global Enterprises. City Football Club, which is the majority owner of NYCFC, also owns the Manchester City Football Club of England. “It’s pretty much of a fantasy,” said Marty Edelman, NYCFC’s vice chairman. “We’ve been an itinerant tenant in a number of different spaces. I think our fans need a different GPS every week to figure out where they go to watch us play.”
