Jorge Madruga and the New York City Football Club are closing in on a deal to build a $1 billion development in the Bronx that will include a new soccer stadium.
Madruga’s Maddd Equities and the team’s owners are close to an agreement with the city that will allow the soccer club to build a 25,000-seat stadium in the South Bronx, according to the New York Times. The stadium will be privately funded and part of a more than $1 billion development.
The stadium would anchor a project near the team’s current home at Yankee Stadium that’s set to also include affordable housing, a new school, retail space and a hotel. It would replace an elevator parts factory and parking lots.
The project still needs to go through public hearings and a rezoning application before getting finalized, but the Maddd Equities-led development group is confident that the project will not be stalled by community or governmental opposition.
Construction would start in 2022 at the earliest, and the soccer team would likely not start playing its games there until 2024 at the earliest.
Yankees president Randy Levine set the new plan in motion when he told Maddd Equities that the team would reduce its parking spaces requirement and let the development firm buy them. Maddd Equities would be able to help the nonprofit Bronx Parking Development Corporation, which was established when the new Yankee Stadium was built, get out from under debt by buying the six parking lots.
Multiple ideas for a new permanent NYCFC home have been floated over the years, but none have gotten very far, and the team still shares space with the Yankees. However, Levine told the times that this project was likely to move forward.
“We are moving toward concluding a transformational project in the South Bronx that will create and save thousands of jobs, provide thousands of units of much-needed affordable housing, a new school and hotel, community-based retail and a world-class soccer venue,” he said. [NYT] – Eddie Small