New York Metropolis officers accepted a plan Thursday to construct a 25,000-seat stadium for Main League Soccer’s New York Metropolis FC subsequent to the New York Mets‘ stadium, Citi Area.
The $780 million soccer stadium, anticipated to open in 2027, will anchor a 23-acre (9-hectare) redevelopment venture within the Willets Level neighborhood that may also embrace housing, a brand new public college, retail shops and a lodge.
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The brand new stadium can be New York Metropolis’s first venue devoted to skilled soccer. NYCFC, which gained the MLS championship in 2021, has primarily performed its house video games at Yankee Stadium within the Bronx since coming into the league in 2015.
On account of scheduling conflicts with the New York Yankees, nonetheless, NYCFC has repeatedly been pressured to play at Citi Area and even every now and then on the house of its MLS rivals, the New York Purple Bulls.
Along with Citi Area, the brand new soccer venue’s neighbors will embrace the USTA Billie Jean King Nationwide Tennis Heart, the place the US Open is performed.
The Metropolis Council accepted the brand new stadium after a long time of failed efforts to rework Willets Level, lengthy a gritty cluster of auto physique retailers.
Metropolis officers have mentioned that the stadium can be privately financed by NYCFC’s house owners, who embrace the Yankees and Manchester Metropolis Soccer Membership proprietor Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates.
However the metropolis’s Unbiased Finances Workplace concluded that the precise price to taxpayers for the stadium could possibly be $516 million unfold over the 49-year time period of NYCFC’s lease.
The evaluation is predicated on what town would have obtained in property taxes had it bought the land to the stadium’s builders as an alternative of leasing it.
The event workforce contains Associated Corporations and Sterling Equities, which is partly managed by the Wilpon household, who used to personal the Mets.
Data from The Related Press contributed to this report.
