Major League Soccer is hoping to score big in Queens.
During a recent presentation at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects revealed the first designs for the $300 million, 25,000-seat soccer stadium that MLS wants to build for an expansion franchise in Flushing-Meadows Park.
His hourlong presentation was primarily about his firm’s design of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, but it briefly offered glimpses of the MLS stadium project that SHoP was hired to design in October.
The plan calls for an open-air stadium enclosed in a mesh design.
“It’s all about making a new kind of stadium that has no walls — that’s completely open at all times,” Pasquarelli said.
The massive rooftop frame is shaped like a doughnut and hovers over the upper deck, but it still allows a scenic view of the nearby Unisphere and other local landmarks.
The stadium dimensions could allow for as many as 35,000 seats.
The entire presentation was captured on YouTube and later posted by the sports blog Nets Daily. Shortly after The Post inquired about the video yesterday, it was pulled from the Internet.
Mayor Bloomberg supports the MLS plan, but it faces staunch opposition from various community groups and local politicians — primarily because up to 13 acres of park land would seized.
Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates called the design a “nightmare” and “equivalent of parking three enormous aircraft carriers in the middle of a public park.”
“Now we know why MLS has been trying so hard to keep the renderings of the stadium out of the public eye,” said Croft.
MLS spokeswoman Risa Heller insisted: “This is not what the stadium is going to look like. This was an early architectural design study.”