Next month, the world's biggest sporting event arrives in the New York region. Millions of soccer fans will tune in as World Cup matches unfold nearby, bringing another burst of energy to a sport that already feels deeply woven into the city's fabric. Walk through Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan or Staten Island on any weekend and you'll find pickup games underway on parks and school fields, kids in club jerseys, and packed bars opening early for international matches.

But while World Cup excitement may come and go, another project taking shape in Queens is designed to give the sport a permanent home in New York City itself.

Across from Citi Field in Willets Point, construction crews are steadily assembling Etihad Park, a more than $780 million stadium that will become the permanent home of New York City FC when it opens for the 2027 Major League Soccer season. The 25,000-seat venue will be the first soccer-specific stadium ever built within New York City's five boroughs—and Major League Soccer's first fully electric stadium.

Designed by HOK, with Turner Construction Company serving as construction manager and general contractor, the privately financed project serves as a centerpiece of a much larger redevelopment effort planned for Willets Point.

For the carpenters and contractors helping build it, the project means something simpler: being able to point to a landmark structure and say they built it.

Carlo DiSilvestro, Vice President and Senior Operations Manager at Turner Construction, said projects like this carry a different weight.

"Whenever you're building something monumental—stadiums, hospitals, schools, places where people gather—those projects are always special to build."

That feeling extends across the site. James Gramarosa, General Foreman for Jacobson & Company, a 130-year-old interiors and drywall contractor, said workers have developed a strong sense of pride around the project knowing millions of people will eventually pass through the stadium every year.

"We're proud because it's the first soccer stadium ever built in New York City and the five boroughs," added Phillip Fiorentino, Senior Trustee to the NYC District Council of Carpenters, Delegate to Local 45 and President of the Queens Board of Business Agents of the New York City Building Trades of Greater NY.

The vision is no longer on paper. In Queens, crews are steadily building New York City's first true home for soccer. Carpenters are installing stadium seating, constructing suites and interior spaces, and handling drywall and framing work throughout the project. More than 300 union carpenters are currently on site, Fiorentino estimated, with workforce numbers fluctuating through different phases of construction and reaching roughly 350 at peak periods.

Like many major projects, the work unfolds in layers, with one phase wrapping up as another begins and multiple trades working simultaneously.

The venue will feature steep seating intended to bring fans closer to the action and create the louder, tighter atmosphere associated with some of the world's most celebrated soccer venues. Plans also include a seven-story glass-and-LED entry feature known as "The Cube," designed as a dramatic front door to the stadium experience.

For workers on site, the transformation may be even more striking because of what stood there before.

Willets Point sat for decades as a patchwork of auto shops, industrial yards and heavily contaminated land—a landscape that famously inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Valley of Ashes" in The Great Gatsby.

"The most rewarding part is seeing something that came from—when it was there, it was all contaminated soil, it sat there for a while—and then seeing a stadium being formed right in front of our eyes," Fiorentino said. "Seeing our members build this gives me a great sense of pride."

The stadium is helping anchor a much broader transformation of Willets Point. The larger redevelopment surrounding the project includes 2,500 affordable housing units, a public school, retail space and new public open space.

DiSilvestro said the changes already underway around Willets Point are part of what makes the project unique.

"It's interesting to be building in Willets Point because it's an area that's changing," he said. "You're seeing new housing, schools and investment coming in. It's unique to be part of a community that's changing and seeing so much investment."

Nearby, a major casino and hotel development planned beside Citi Field is set to bring another wave of construction activity and further transform the area around Citi Field and the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center into one of the region's largest entertainment destinations—creating additional opportunities for union contractors and skilled tradespeople for years to come.

A little over a year from now, the sounds here will be very different.

Fans will stream through gates wearing sky blue jerseys. Chants will echo through the stands. Twenty-five thousand people will fill New York City's first soccer-specific stadium as NYCFC begins a new chapter in a permanent home built specifically for the sport.

Gramarosa, who has spent more than a year on the project, said he's already gotten a glimpse of the passion that will eventually fill the building after meeting NYCFC supporters.

"These people eat, live and breathe New York City Football Club," he said. "To see that kind of dedication is really cool."

For now, though, the loudest sounds still belong to the people making that moment possible: drills, lifts, hammers and crews of union tradespeople and contractors building it piece by piece.