Official: NYC Soccer Stadium

Why don't YOU start the group? Oh yeah, because off line, you suck.

 

Panties must be cutting off circulation to your brain.

 

1) Cosmos is the only way it works, building from scratch will not get it off the ground without the name. The name is the key, it holds a tradition of winning trophies. You really want to do the whole Metro/Bull thing again ? that NY team should have been the Cosmos at all cost and they ********ed it up from the beginning and it's taken them years to admit there mistake(see Sounders,Timbers), hell this league might be up to 5 or 6 DPs per team by now. PK proved that the name still had staying power and is the foundation for what American soccer is today!

 

Well CosmosV, I must agree with you on this point but as someone who sat in Philadelphia and waited over 20 years for soccer to come back, I got to disagree with who you think should get the team. Just get the stadium and the team and work it out from there. The league has shown steady growth and the league office that once shunned NASL, now is starting to embrace it's history. But in the end, just get the STADIUM and the TEAM (COSMOS).

 

I'm serious, why don't you start a new supporters club in the image you think is best? This seems to be very important to you. And don't tell me you don't have the time, I can quite assure you, the folks on here all have busy lives apart from our soccer endeavors.

 

Lets get back on track.

In other Greenwich Village news, NYU had to scale back their plans for building on THEIR OWN land by about a 1/5th in a recent agreement. Community board rejected their original plan with a unanimous vote, leading to years of debate. NYU's land for this expansion is south of washington square park and within walking distance of Pier 40:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/nyregion/nyu-to-scale-back-expansion-plans-in-village.html

The opposition described here will most likely occur if MLS pursues Pier 40. After reading this, unless some great PR occurs, I don't think MLS expansion to Pier 40 will be a fruitful pursuit.

 

Yep - and I imagine the league knows that.

In fact, Jack Bell kind of hinted that while there was no NO at the meetings, they were not that positive.

Also to note, in the last times article they specifically mention Flushing Meadows. It always comes back to that location.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/sports/soccer/mls-stadium-at-west-sides-pier-40-is-discussed.html

"If Pier 40 is not feasible, M.L.S. will focus on other potential sites, including Flushing Meadows Park in Queens."

 

Not to mention, NYU is also using their own money. Own money on their own land and it was denied. Though I do hope something comes out to save Pier 40, stadium or not. That article makes it clear that they're getting desperate.

 

That's the only margin of possibility. The park trust would have to be desperate enough that other complaints can be pushed down.

 

This is the key. The trust is facing declining revenue and the possibility of this pier being condemned (resulting in a catastrophic disruption of parking revenue). Also, the cost of repairing this pier will be VERY expensive. The trust may have to say "Sorry NIMBYs...but this stadium is the only realistic option for keeping the park trust solvent. It actually saves Pier 40 from rotting into the Hudson and pays to keep the rest of waterfront park beautiful for all New Yorkers to enjoy".

NYU was not able to paint that larger picture.

 

NYU is NYC's biggest landlord and they have made thousands of enemies in the neighborhood. The expansion that was linked earlier was to build 4 skyscrapers in the heart of Greenwich Village, a plan that many feared would destroy the spirit of the neighborhood. Pier 40 is far from the heart of the Village, surrounded by water on three sides and light industrial on the other. IOW, it's not really applicable as a comparison.

(On an unrelated side note, Hell hath no fury like a Park Slope NIMBY. After litigating, stalling, and protesting what would have been a terrific multi-use development featuring a beautiful Gehry building, Park Slope has been left with nothing but an ugly stadium. But just because the stadium is 90% completed doesn't mean the war is over; this week they are attempting to block the liquor license so that the arena can't even sell beer. If Ratner was smarter he could have appeased these people by simply offering an organic kale stand in the concourse and a free Dan Zanes and Friends concert. Park Slope is a neighborhood desperately in need of a neutron bomb.)

Anyhoo, here's the part I don't get. Pier 40 was rehabbed at a cost of $20,000,000 and finished in 2007. I play there every week and I don't think it "feels" decrepit. I really don't understand how it can be so messed up that it needs "saving" after only five years. Or did the renovation not include the wooden pilings (which would have been very short-sighted). Or is that the natural life cycle of wooden pilings? And if so, is it reasonable to build a stadium on wooden pilings? If you're not building on pilings, but on landfill, then you can build literally anywhere, so why choose the one place that would be difficult (and illegal)?

 

Actually, everyone knew that the Gehry design was a ruse, as was the affordable housing. And they were right. It's that simple.

 

Did someone use "beautiful" and Frank Gehry Building in close proximity to each other?

 

That's easy to say now, but when the museum in Bilbao was finished, it was a big deal, and revolutionary.

 

Here's just a short article about pier 40 from 2008. It gives you just a little flavor about how "Jane Jacobs'" West Village would feel about a large scale construction.

 

Missing link? And not in a Kansas-intelligent design kinda way.

 

Doesnt sound like the local community will just let this go without a fight. I mean this really would be a fantastic location and would really cement Garber's legacy but is it worth all the effort?

Read the comments and there are a lot of concern and a great point about subway platforms.

20K people in that area is going to be noticed - its not going to go unnoticed. Would be fantastic on the economy as im sure the pubs would be hit and the restaurants would be eaten at but not sure the local community will be crazy about the added traffic on a Saturday.

Another thing - very close to the tunnel - that is traffic enough on its own. lol

 

I'm glad they threw in the W4th Station. It's not like the majority of the fans will be taking the 1 train. I bet most would be coming out of w4th. And some coming out of Spring (C,E).

 

Sometimes I wonder where these people are coming from. It seems like most of those in the Trust were skeptical and negative on the mls stadium idea and my guess they'd be negative on anything thats proposed for the pier. From the sounds of things they don't want a large structure, they don't want a lot of people to use the facility, and they don't want any sort of obstructed view. BUT they want to raise revenues significantly. Am I the only one that thinks the Trust would just let the pier sink into the river before they let anyone build anything on it? It seems to me they want someone to pay them a lot of money to build a public park on the land. Wow, who should I make the check out to?

 

I like this, i think MLS needs to go door to door and start handing out some hush money to buy some standing in the community , you know like the old days, that's the way we use to get things done in this city - grease the palms and get what you want, the city was built on this kind of business.

 

Some of the old school New Yorkers hate everything. Columbia will build something on entirely private land offering services and programs to the community and people will call them a monster. So a monster is a entirely private ordeal while offering free things to the community...?

No stadium being built in NYC will go by without protest. Fact.

 

I think there will be some shady politics involved in order to get this done.

 

http://www.thevillager.com/?p=3484



Pier 40 news

 

Probably in all cases.