Hasta la vista, Manchester City Football Club Soccer Stadium in The Bronx?
A little over a year ago, without any community engagement, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr wrote a letter to the president of Major League Soccer stating that, “The Bronx would be the perfect home for a new professional soccer franchise. I am ready to work with Major League Soccer to make this a reality, and I look forward to beginning this conversation.”
When the deal was announced, much like FreshDirect which was hashed out behind our backs, the community spoke out against it and began meeting with community leaders to discuss what the residents want in their own backyard rather than having these backroom deals decide for us. Months later, Diaz backed down and changed his position on the stadium and was on the fence.
Now Capital New York reports that, “Developers behind a proposal to build the city’s first Major League Soccer arena are looking to develop land near the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, after plans to build near Yankee Stadium fell apart, sources told Capital.”
They go on to say:
“A source close to the negotiations told Capital the Bronx plan “fell through the cracks,” after developers could not reach a deal with the building tenant, which currently occupies the site the partners had hoped to develop.
“The tenant is in one of the old buildings in the area that they needed to vacate, they had agreed on a price, then he changed his mind and the deal fell through,” the source said.”
THIS is a big win for Bronxites and showing how we can rally together to make sure our voices and needs our heard. While we don’t know the inside details of what actually happened, we’re pretty sure that community pressure had a lot to do with this deal collapsing.
Now onto the next project which we’ve been fighting that the community overwhelmingly does not want: FreshDirect.
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