New Baseball Stadium Designs for New York City

The design for a new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx evokes the original 1923 facility. Meanwhile, the city endorsed plans to replace Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets

New Stadium Designs Unveiled

After years of fruitless proposals to replace New York City's two major league baseball parks, the prospects for building new venues gained momentum in late spring with the release of designs for a new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and plans for a new facility for the Mets in Queens that could double as an Olympic stadium. Both stadiums would be privately financed by the teams but include public investments for infrastructure.

The big splashes came within a week of each other in June. The Mets proposal stemmed from the decision by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYC2012, the committee organizing the city's ultimately unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, to seek an alternative site after state legislative leaders quashed plans for a New York Jets football stadium on Manhattan's West Side that would have doubled as an Olympic venue. The Yankee proposal, meanwhile, had been in the works for years, and will anchor a redevelopment of the stadium's South Bronx neighborhood.

The Yankee Stadium design, prepared by HOK Sport + Venue + Event of Kansas City, calls for a 51,000-seat park north of the current facility in the city's Macombs Dam Park and part of the adjacent John Mullaly Park. The design recalls the monumental façade of the original 1923 Yankee Stadium that was removed in a major renovation 30 years ago.

The new stadium would have retail, food, and corporate amenities now standard at modern sports venues. Outside, the master plan envisions construction of four new parking garages, a hotel on a 20,000-sq.-ft. parcel, and 28 acres of new or replacement parkland, including a six-acre park on the Harlem River.

The team will pay the $800 million stadium construction cost, including all overruns. The city will fund $135 million in park, street, and infrastructure work. The state will add $70 million for new parking facilities.

The Yankees franchise and public officials are slated to finalize the master plan details over the summer and submit it for city planning approval this fall. Construction would begin in 2006 and finish in 2009.

In Queens, the Mets franchise had made little progress in replacing Shea Stadium in recent years, even though environmental approvals were completed in 2001. Now, construction is set to begin next year.

The city and team quickly brokered a new agreement after the Manhattan football stadium plan faltered in early June. The plan calls for the Mets to fund and build what the team's owner, Fred Wilpon, has described as a $600 million, 45,000-seat venue in the parking lot of the existing Shea Stadium. The Mets would also use HOK-Sport as designer.

The stadium would open in 2009, with the city and state contributing $160 million for infrastructure work and site preparation.

Under the deal, the city, state, and Olympic committee would fund the $250 million cost of converting the stadium into an 80,000-seat Olympic venue and then return it to a baseball configuration. When New York lost its bid for the 2012 games last month, city and Olympic bid officials said no decisions had been made on whether the Queens site remained in play for future Olympic bids.

Whitney Expansion Plans Advance

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission recently approved a revised plan for an expansion of Manhattan's Whitney Museum of American Art, paving the way for a project 20 years in planning.

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano of Italy modified his original plan, which had called for demolition of two adjacent brownstones on 74th Street. The new plan will narrow the museum's entrance from 32 to 16 ft. and locate a plaza one floor higher in order to save one of the existing buildings.

The plan was revised because the museum's board deemed a previous $200 million version too expensive. The new plan will cost about $100 million. An earlier plan from two decades ago died due to fierce opposition from the museum's neighbors.

The revised design calls for demolition of one of the brownstones to create the new entrance and a new nine-story building behind the current museum structure. The new building will link to the museum via covered bridges.

The new facility will house more than 15,000 items from the museum's collection. The construction effort will include renovation and restoration of several other buildings on 74th Street and Madison Avenue as well as the shearing off of back portions of at least four of the structures in order to make room for the tower.

The Whitney plan still must gain other city approvals, but museum officials expect to break ground in 2007 and open the new wing in 2009.

Washington Square Rehab Planned

Renovation of Washington Square Park in Manhattan may start as early as this fall, following last year's completion of a major refurbishing of the park's famous arch. But design plans introduced by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation are facing opposition from a Greenwich Village residents group.

Under the $16 million proposal, approved this spring by Community Board No. 2 and the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission, renovations to the 179-year-old park include moving a sunken fountain to align it better with the arch, enclosing the 9.75-acre park with a granite and iron fence, replacing a performance space with a seeded lawn, enlarging and moving two dog parks, and flattening three asphalt mounds.

Parts of the plan drew strong opposition from Greenwich Village residents, including a proposal to install iron entrance gates that would have closed access to the park at night. The parks department scrapped the gates, and in their place, proposed using regular metal police barricades.

If the New York City Council approves funding for the plan, construction would start later this year and last two to three years, according to the parks department.