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Turns out there’s a little meat behind the latest set of stadium renderings floating around Gotham. YIMBY got the exclusive: the Harlem River Yards project that’s being mooted for the South Bronx waterfront includes a proposed stadium for New York City Football Club. The stadium would seat 26,000 and would be sited above existing rail yards. The cost of the building project comes out to $700 million, and would be expected to be complete by 2022.
The partnership, according to YIMBY, is made up of Related, Somerset Partners, and “the New York City Football Club”, but that’s probably meant to be CFG, the parent entity that owns 80 percent of NYCFC.
The project includes affordable housing and a 25,000-square-foot medical facility. The article points out that the plans aren’t yet finalized — a major caveat — but given that Somerset is already working on their residential towers next to the site, approval is probably likely.
According to YIMBY, “plans for the stadium and affordable housing also include an additional 150,000 square feet of retail space, as well as an 85,000-square-foot park. Additional amenities are listed in the above screen-shot of the plans.”
Is this the long-sought after solution to New York City FC’s stadium search? We’ll see. While prior sites have gotten submarined because they subtract from the city’s parkland (notably, the Flushing Meadows plan), another sticking point is the city’s desire to build out more affordable housing, as opposed to simply dedicating more land for luxury development (which a stadium would certainly be). This plan addresses both.
Furthermore, the South Bronx waterfront is the kind of prime industrial space that lends itself to building both affordable housing (which the city desperately needs) and a stadium (which the team absolutely needs if it’s going to remain a flagship MLS team).
We’ll explore this more in the days and weeks to come, but for now: what do you think? Is this where you’d like the Pigeons to roost?