Page 18 - RE-NJ

16 MAY 2026
All images courtesy: Red Bull New York
The new RWJBarnabas Health Red Bulls Performance Center at 103
Columbia Road in Morris Township includes an 88,400-square-foot main
building, eight full-size outdoor soccer pitches and other cutting-edge
facilities and amenities for the Major League Soccer club.
MAKING THE PITCH
Inside the push to build new Red Bulls training center in
Morris Township — and transform a stranded office campus
How do you turn a former office
campus into an 80-acre Major
League Soccer athletic training
center with eight pitches, a gym and
a hydrotherapy pool? With years of
planning and input from the neighbors.
That’s according to the team behind
the RWJBarnabas Health Red Bulls
Performance
Center in Morris
Township, which
marked its grand
opening on April
22 with a ribbon-
cutting, speeches
and parachutists
from the Red
Nicholas Racioppi Jr.
Bull Air Force.
The fanfare was fitting for such a
momentous day — the culmination
By Marlaina Cockcroft
of plans to update the club’s facilities
and help grow youth soccer — but
especially after a multiyear effort to
find and secure the perfect site.
“We converted, really, 99 percent of
the residents,” said Nicholas Racioppi
Jr., an attorney for the project and
chair of the real estate group at Riker
Danzig LLP, recalling the proactive
outreach that helped build support
for the proposal, despite early
pushback.
He added: “This is one of the first
times something like this was built
in or next to a residential area,”
so it was an educational process
to address the public’s concerns
by the time the township held a
public hearing and granted site plan
approval in 2023.
Located at 103 Columbia Road,
the complex will provide training
and medical services for Red Bull
New York, which plays at Sports
Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, with
an 88,400-square-foot main building,
eight full-size outdoor soccer pitches
and other cutting-edge facilities and
amenities. In addition to the Red
Bull first and second teams, the
complex is home to the Red Bull New
York Academy and Youth Training
programs.
Those groups have access to a mix of
heated, irrigated natural grass and turf
surfaces with one 350-seat match field
designated for academy games, plus
outdoor areas equipped with advanced
training technology including multi-
angle camera tracking systems for
analytics and player development.
“This is where the future of this
club will take shape,” said Marc
de Grandpré, Red Bull New York
president and general manager. “We’re
proud of what’s
been built, but
even more, we
know what
it requires of
us now. This
center raises the
standard. Now
we must live up
Marc de Grandpré
to it every day
we walk through these doors or step
on these pitches.”
Equally notable — the campus, which
cost an estimated $112 million to
build, has transformed a site that once