(Yicai) March 13 -- A Chinese state-owned construction contractor will build China’s largest soccer park in Guangzhou on the site where struggling Chinese property developer China Evergrande Group was supposed to build its soccer stadium.

China Construction Fourth Engineering Division won the engineering procurement construction contract to build the Guangzhou Football Park with a CNY2.4 billion (USD328 million) bid, the unit of China State Construction Engineering announced on its official WeChat account yesterday.

The Guangzhou Football Park is expected to become China’s largest professional soccer stadium with a capacity of 73,000 spectators, China Construction Fourth Engineering Division noted.

The Guangzhou Football Park was formerly known as the Guangzhou Evergrande Football Stadium, which Evergrande designed for its soccer club. With a total investment of CNY12 billion (USD1.7 billion), the stadium was scheduled to be completed and put into operation by the end of 2022, according to the developer’s initial plan.

However, Evergrande halted the stadium’s construction in 2021 when it fell into a liquidity crisis. The following year, the company returned the land to the city’s authorities for CNY5.5 billion (USD764.2 million). Guangzhou City Construction Investment Group, a local government-owned firm, took over the project.

The Guangdong Architectural Design and Research Institute unveiled a new design for the stadium in September last year, planning to create a complex consisting of a professional soccer stadium, a public fitness center, and commercial facilities, with a capacity much lower than the original 100,000 spectators.

Editor: Futura Costaglione