Soccer’s NYC dream is closer to reality

Major League Soccer and city and state officials are on the verge of finalizing a deal for a $300 million, 25,000-seat soccer stadium to be built for the league’s use in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, according to the New York Post.

Earlier this summer, Major League Soccer announced its choice for the location of the stadium, on the northern portion of the park, after searching other spots in the city — including Pier 40 — for almost a year. Ground could break on the stadium, next to Citi Field and Arthur Ashe Center, as soon as early 2013, if local officials and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority sign off on a required parkland swap approval. The project, which also calls for nine soccer fields for public and minor league use, would take up nine acres of city-owned land, so the state must return an equal amount of land to park use.

“I definitely think this could happen in 2013,” an unnamed state official told the Post, “and it will generate construction jobs, permanent jobs and sales-tax revenues for the city and state.”

Major League Soccer would finance the development in full. It has not yet secured an ownership group to bring a New York City-based team to the stadium. [Post]