"It's something tangible that people can see," says Red Bull New York managing director Erik Stover. "If they're driving by on I-280 or riding on the PATH train, they can see it coming out of the ground. Up to now, it just looks like a dirt field."

Its genesis goes back nearly a decade, when the Red Bulls were known as the MetroStars. The team continues to play its home games at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, but their average crowd of 20-25,000 rattles around in that 76,000-seat venue, and the team, which became known as the Red Bulls a couple of years ago, has long been in search of a more intimate venue. That venue is now slated for completion by September 2009.

Ground was officially broken more than two years ago, but site remediation and team and stadium ownership issues had thrown up some barriers to actual construction. The project got a jumpstart in November when team officials unveiled a revised design for the stadium. Those changes came shortly after the Red Bull New York franchise bought out the 50% ownership interest in the stadium held by entertainment giant AEG.