NYCFC taps HOK, Turner to build Queens stadium

The landmark soccer stadium development in Queens’ Willets Point neighborhood officially has an architect and a general contractor.

The New York City Football Club picked HOK to serve as designer and Turner Construction Company as contractor on the project,  the Commercial Observer reported. Both firms have experience with sports projects and previously collaborated on developments in Albany and Buffalo.

The development team plans on finalizing a design for the stadium later this year. The New York City Public Design Commission will review the design as the project goes through the universal land use review procedure. 

The stadium, which will be located on 126th Street, is expected to create more than 14,000 local jobs and cost $780 million to build.

The 25,000-seat stadium is part of a significantly bigger project being developed by Related Companies and Sterling Equities. The developers reached an agreement with city officials in November to kick the project into high gear.

In addition to the stadium — scheduled for delivery by 2027, depending on ULURP — the project on city land includes a 250-key hotel and 2,500 units of affordable housing across 23 acres. The housing component is the largest dedicated affordable housing development in the city in a half-century.

The nomadic soccer club will pay up to $4 million annually on a 49-year lease, which includes a 25-year extension option. The stadium owners won’t have to pay real estate taxes during the lease and NYCFC plans to pay for the stadium privately, though a financing structure has yet to be finalized.

NYCFC has primarily called Yankee Stadium home. Five years ago, the New York Yankees and Maddd Equities proposed a $1 billion project to develop a stadium, retail, affordable housing and a hotel in parking facilities next to the baseball park. That deal fell apart in the eleventh hour.

— Holden Walter-Warner