The old saying that no news is good news may not necessarily apply to a new New York Cosmos stadium proposal, as team officials await word on its future.
In April we wrote about the stadium proposal, with indications that some sort of decision be forthcoming. The plan, a $400-million privately financed Cosmos proposal for the Elmont Park site under control of the Empire State Development Corp., includes retail, restaurants, a 175-room hotel and park land, all next to a 25,000-seat stadium on a 36-acre site last used as a parking lot. The plan was in response to an request for bids from the Empire State Development Corp.
Since the proposal was submitted, it’s been crickets from the development corporation. In the short term, the team is struggling to attract fans to Hofstra University and wants to put in a place a permanent plan for a training complex. In the long term, a new stadium is key to the team. The delay has team officials looking at alternate site, according to Cosmos COO Erik Stover in an Empire of Soccer interview:
As it turns out, there is no avoiding red tape when it comes to large scale construction projects. Instead of suffering delays on one end, their proposal has landed New York in a waiting game, at the mercy of Albany’s political devices. Worse still? It is an election year for the State governorship, making such large scale projects a political football.
In that waiting game, the team has quietly explored other land opportunities just in case their Plan A options do not pan out.
“We have met with people in the five boroughs and outside of it,” Stover reveals. “It would be hard to put anything in any order of what would be a Plan B. There is a Plan A and other talk about other business.”