Long Island’s Eisenhower Park has been transformed into a 34,000-seat temporary stadium with grandstands reaching 75 feet high and is ready to host eight matches during the International Cricket Council's T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup beginning June 1.
As reported by Bret McCormick of Sports Business Journal, the ICC declined to disclose the project cost, but each rented component that went into what’s officially called the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium has been used somewhere else, whether the F1 Vegas Grand Prix or any number of pro golf and tennis tournaments.
According to McCormick, a crew of firms with expertise in one-off events was assembled, including Parker Company (project management), Populous (design), Arena Americas (temporary structures expert), Legends (food and beverage), PMY Group (technology) and LandTek, which crucially grew a world-class playing surface in Florida and trucked it to the park 30 miles east of Manhattan. Wrote McCormick, "The collective experience and know-how enabled the stadium to be built in just 106 days, despite at least 27 days of either rain or snow during that time."
“There was not a learning experience,” said Don Lockerbie, venue development manager for the T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup. “In the end, I’ve been the orchestra conductor of a 25-firm orchestra. While there is a lot to coordinate, these guys are able to do a lot of work just knowing what to do.”
The ICC found a perfect blank canvas in an expansive Long Island park surrounded by a huge cluster of cricket fans, McCormick reported, adding that a critical meeting in October 2023 pinned down a project timetable that would enable sales teams to do their jobs. Populous then designed the stadium over the last three months of 2023, working tightly with Arena Americas in a design-build method suited for the compressed timeline.
"Procuring all the pieces needed — including the things that are taken for granted in permanent stadiums, like elevators and restrooms — creating a marketing plan and food and beverage program, and coordinating security and transportation all happened at breakneck speed," McCormick wrote. "The components arrived at the site from events all over the world. After the last match, the stadium will be broken down and the parts transported to their next event."
“I would love to sit here and tell you that this is really groundbreaking, but it’s been going on for a long time,” said Populous senior event architect Jeff Keas, who has worked on World Cups, Olympics and Super Bowls. “Think of it like Legos. You could follow the instructions, but we took all the pieces and assembled it in a way that’s never been done before.”
The grandstands on the east and west sides are 40 rows each, and built to a high safety standard, with the Manhattan skyline visible in the distance from the top of the east side.
"The temporary stadium’s array of premium seating, mostly triple-decker tents, is primarily situated on a north-south line looking over the bowler’s shoulder (the best view for live cricket)," McCormick wrote. "Twenty-six suites sit on the stadium’s north and south sides, as well as cabana suites, loge boxes and party decks, with a handful of loge and party decks on the east and west sides."
Grass for the playing surface was transported on a 20-tractor-trailer truck fleet nearly 1,300 miles from LandTek in Florida to Long Island, McCormick reported, and trays of Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass were laid over drainage and irrigation systems onto a laser-graded base.
