New Yankee Stadium

About New Yankee Stadium

New Yankee Stadium is the new ballpark for the New York Yankees, currently under construction. The new ballpark will retain the Yankee Stadium title held by the current stadium. It is being built on the current site of Macombs Dam Park in the New York City borough of the Bronx, across the street from the current Yankee Stadium, which it will replace. The existing stadium opened in 1923 and the New Yankee Stadium is set to open in 2009.

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the stadium took place on August 16, 2006, the 58th anniversary of Babe Ruth's death, with team owner George Steinbrenner, then-Governor of New York George Pataki, and Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg among the notables donning Yankees hard hats and wielding ceremonial shovels to mark the occasion. The new facility has a planned 2009 opening, coinciding with the opening of Citi Field, future home of the New York Mets. At a total cost of $1.3 billion (US), it is roughly 500 times the cost of the original Stadium in 1923, and the most expensive stadium ever built in the United States as well as the third most expensive stadium ever built in the world after Wembley Stadium in London, and the Stade Olympique in Montreal.

The Yankees' desire to move to a new stadium dates back to the 1980s, where Yankee owner George Steinbrenner publicly considered a move of the franchise to a safer area of the New York City metropolitan area, even the possibility of moving the team across the Hudson River over to New Jersey. The South Bronx was considered a bad neighborhood. However, in the 1990s, with the team becoming successful on the field, attendance increased dramatically. With the large number of people coming to the Bronx, and the increased security in the area on game days, the public safety situation became less of a problem, and thoughts turned to a new or renovated stadium in the Bronx.