The search for a site upon which to build a permanent home stadium for New York City FC goes on. According to a member of the Manchester City board of directors, the 2015 Major League Soccer expansion club has shifted its focus away from the Bronx borough after exhausting all possible options in that part of the city.
While NYCFC, which is co-owned by the City Football Group — owners of Man City — and Yankee Global Enterprises, will play at least its seasons at Yankee Stadium, Man City director Martin Edelmen has told the New York Daily News the group is now focusing its efforts on securing a stadium site in either Queens or Brooklyn.“We had focused on the Bronx but that didn’t work out and we weren’t able to find anything else in the Bronx that made sense. So we’re looking in Queens and Brooklyn, and each potential has to be analyzed for construction, for access to public transportation, for parking, it’s a very complicated process.
“There’s no rush, but there’s a rush. In other words we’re not going to just settle for something, we’re going to find a place where everybody is comfortable doing it, and it makes economic sense to do it. But we’re not just sitting and waiting for the place to come to us.”
The club explored a number of prospective stadium sites within the Bronx, including a 28,000-seat arena just south of Yankee Stadium, but a mayoral change during the process played a large role in killing that particular deal.
NYCFC has previously pursued a stadium inside Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, near the New York Mets’ Citi Field, but were unable to work out a deal with NYC’s other baseball team. It was announced this week that NYCFC will open its MLS home schedule March 15 against the New England Revolution.
Follow @AndyEdMLS