[NYguy]

https://commercialobserver.com/2023/...ueens-stadium/

NYCFC Picks HOK and Turner Construction to Build Queens Stadium





BY CELIA YOUNG
APRIL 14, 2023

New York City Football Club (NYCFC) tapped architecture firm HOK and general contractor Turner Construction Company to build its long-awaited soccer stadium in Willets Point, Queens, NYCFC announced Friday.

The duo will design and build the $780 million, 25,000-seat stadium at the center of a mixed-use development that’s also due to include housing, a public school and retail, according to NYCFC.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” Brad Sims, CEO of NYCFC, said. “We’re getting one of the absolute top sports architecture firms in the world and marrying them with one of the absolute top builders of sports stadia in the world. It’s almost a dream team for us.”

NYCFC, HOK and Turner plan to finalize the design of the stadium later this year, when it will be reviewed by the New York City Public Design Commission as part of the city’s lengthy Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

If the project scores approvals by the end of this year, the stadium will be on track to open in time for the 2027 Major League Soccer season, Sims said.

HOK plans to take inspiration from the Willets Point neighborhood in Queens to design the stadium, said Rashed Singaby, principal and senior project designer at HOK.

“The inspiration does not come from a project. The inspiration comes from the location,” Singby said. “This is a stadium that represents New York, a world city, and represents Queens, which is the world’s borough with residents from every nationality and ethnicity across the world and every language spoken across the world. The stadium has to reflect that and be curated specifically to that identity.”

NYCFC’s new stadium will also include year-round events and programming for the Queens community when not hosting games, though Sims said it was too early to share specifics of the design.

The arena has been more than a decade in the making. The club first began searching for a permanent stadium before NYCFC had its first kickoff in 2012, but initial plans for a development in Flushing Meadows Corona Park were derailed by local opposition.

The team has played at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx for the past nine seasons while it searched for a new location, but won its first MLS Cup in 2021 despite the less-than-ideal terrain, The New York Times reported. It was also in talks to build a stadium in the South Bronx but that deal eventually fell through.