Jennifer O'Sullivan
2:34:56
Thank you, Frank.
2:34:58
Chair Riley and Councilpersons.
2:35:00
I'm Jennifer O'Sullivan, chief operating officer for New York City Football Club.
2:35:05
On behalf of New York City Football Club, I wanna begin by saying how grateful I am to be here sharing our vision with you today.
2:35:11
This approval process US is so crucial to the club's future and to our fans, many of whom live in this community and the borough of Queens.
2:35:18
For those who don't know us, We are New York City's only major league soccer team.
2:35:25
Next slide, please.
2:35:29
We are 80% owned by City Football Group, parent company to Manchester City, and 20 men's and women's clubs worldwide, and 20% owned by the New York Yankees.
2:35:38
Announced as the 20th franchise of MLS in 2013, we played our inaugural season in 2015, and we have been playing 4 and investing in the city of New York for past 10 years.
2:35:49
Our season consists of a 34 game season, 17 home games, 17 away, runs from late February to mid October over culminating in the playoffs in November December.
2:35:59
We were incredibly proud to represent New York City as the 2021 MLS Cup Champions and 2022 Campionist Cup champions.
2:36:07
Our Academy program, consisting of elite players ages U Twelve to U17, is one of the best in MLS and is the 1st in the country to win back to back titles at the U 19 level.
2:36:18
We have produced 12 homegrown players those are players in our academy who come up through the ranks, who signed professional team professional team contracts with us, and many of those players have come from right here in New York City.
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Bronx, Brooklyn, and other areas in the New York City metro area.
2:36:34
We are incredibly lucky and proud to have such a rich pool of talent here in the New York area.
2:36:38
Next slide, please.
2:36:42
This is a rendering of what a match day would look like, and you can see the the passion that we know that our fans will bring on game days as they do now.
2:36:54
Beyond enhancing our community work in the city, which will talk about in a moment.
2:36:58
This private investment will bring immense economic benefits to the families and businesses of New York City and those that call Willis Point Home.
2:37:06
As you heard earlier, the larger Willis Pointe project is projected to generate more than $6,000,000,000 in economic impact over the next 30 years.
2:37:13
And the $800,000,000 privately financed stadium will be entirely union built, creating thousands of new jobs, including 4000 construction jobs alone for the stadium build, resulting in over 300,000,000 in construction wages, salaries, and benefits that will be invested directly back into this community.
2:37:31
Local procurement is absolutely critical and essential for us to this proposed project, and we would make it our priority to partner with local businesses in Queens, and across the city not only during the construction process, but also once the stadium is up and running.
2:37:45
We are also thrilled to be able to relocate our front office staff of over a hundred people to Willis Point they will be headquartered in the stadium.
