Report: New York City FC Likely to Build $400 Million Soccer Stadium Near Yankee Stadium

Start spreading the news. New York City FC will make its home in the Bronx.

N.Y.C. FC is closing in on a deal to build a 28,000-seat soccer stadium in the Bronx. The facility will be located near Yankee Stadium and begin hosting games by 2019, according to the New York Post.

“The $400 million stadium will be located on what now is an empty lot between the Major Deegan and East 153rd Street,” the report says. “[N.Y.C. FC] hopes to start playing in the new digs in 2018 or 2019.”

Outgoing New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has endorsed the project, but mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, whose approval is required for the project to go forward, has yet to review it.

N.Y.C. FC is a Major League Soccer expansion franchise which is jointly owned and operated by the New York Yankees and Manchester City of the Premier League. The team will begin play in 2015 and is expected to announce that Yankee Stadium will be its home until the new stadium is built.

N.Y.C. FC will pay for the facility’s construction using “city-backed tax exempt bonds.” It’s a similar approach to the ones taken by the Yankees and New York Mets to build their new stadiums, which opened in 2009.

The land on which it will be built sits just south of Yankee Stadium. GAL Manufacturing, an elevator parts company, currently occupies part of the lot, and N.Y.C. FC will pay GAL to relocate.

Wednesday’s development marks the end of the Queens (New York City) MLS stadium project. The league spent many years pursuing a deal with local officials to build a $340 million, 20,000- to 25,000-seat stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. MLS officials had hoped a future expansion team would play there, but that became an unlikely prospect when the Yankees and Manchester City teamed up to establish N.Y.C. FC last May.

The combination of the seemingly unlimited resources of Manchester City’s owners and the Yankees’ knowledge of the local political and economic scene transformed the Bronx soccer stadium from a pipe dream to a near certainty.

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