Steinbrenner Targets 2009 for a New Yankee Stadium

Flanked by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and New York Gov. George Pataki, Yankee owner George Steinbrenner unveiled plans for a stadium he hopes to move his team to in 2009.

Since Steinbrenner bought the team in 1973, the Yankees had examined several ballpark alternatives, including a move to New Jersey or to Manhattan’s West Side.

“We’ve had a lot of different things in front of us, whether we go over to there, over here,” Steinbrenner said. “But we decided to stay in the Bronx and do the job for the Bronx.”

Requiring approval in the fall from the state Legislature and City Council, the new ballpark will be just north of the current stadium, which opened in 1923, and the Yankees hope to break ground next spring.

It will be only the third privately financed stadium in the major leagues since Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, joining the San Francisco Giants’ new ballpark (2000) and the park the St. Louis Cardinals are to move into next year.

Yankee Stadium is the third-oldest ballpark in the major leagues, trailing only Boston’s Fenway Park (1912) and Chicago’s Wrigley Field (1914).

The Yankees unveiled a model of the ballpark, which on the outside will be treated with limestone and resemble Yankee Stadium before its 1974-75 renovation. It will seat from 50,800 to 54,000, with about 30,000 seats in the lower deck, an increase of 10,000. The field dimensions will remain as they are currently. Monument Park will move to the new ballpark, and a stadium club will be added above it.

Yankee President Randy Levine said the new ballpark also will be called “Yankee Stadium,” but that the team may sell naming rights and have the ballpark called “Yankee Stadium at ‘X’ Plaza.”

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