A planned Major League Soccer stadium in Bronx, near Yankee Stadium, may dislodge North America’s largest elevator-door equipment manufacturer.
GAL Manufacturing’s 110,000-square-foot building at 50 East 153rd Street in the South Bronx will give way to a new $400 million soccer stadium, should the Bloomberg-era plan come to fruition. The 28,000-seat facility would sit atop a site currently occupied by a parking complex and handful of neighboring buildings, and be co-owned by the Bronx Bombers.
Local officials, including Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., insist that any building contract for the new stadium must include a clause guaranteeing GAL a fair price for its land and a relocation allowance to another Bronx site.
Such a move, however, could actually enable the company, located on the site for the past 44 years, to pursue needed upgrades.
“We don’t have a loading dock,” Doug Witham, GAL’s vice president of sales and marketing, told Crain’s. “If we had one or two docks in a new location, it would be enormously beneficial.”
The city came close to inking a deal for the Bronx site earlier this month, but Mayor Bill de Blasio backed out amid concerns about tax breaks and other indirect subsidies for the New York City Football Club, which is jointly owned by the Yankees and Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Manchester City.
