Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park Stadium was once one of the main venues of the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games; in the near future, it will be renewed as Nanjing's first 50,000-seat professional football stadium, becoming a new landmark for the city's football dreams. With the release of the pre-approval public notice for the planning and design scheme of the Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park Professional Football Stadium Reconstruction Project, the renovation progress of this landmark venue has attracted much attention.

On January 13, construction is currently at the pile foundation stage, with about 61% of the overall progress completed, and pile foundation construction is scheduled to be completed in early February.

The Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park Professional Football Stadium Reconstruction Project is a core measure for Nanjing to implement the "Nanjing Work Plan for Building a National Key City for Football Development (2024-2027)" and is also a key node in Nanjing's sports development plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan period. According to the plan, after reconstruction, the Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park Professional Football Stadium will have a total construction area of about 68,600 square meters, including about 68,600 square meters above ground, and will move away from its original functional positioning as a comprehensive sports stadium to transform into a specialized core venue for football matches.

On December 18 last year, the project officially obtained the construction permit, and the next day the construction team entered the site to start pile foundation construction, about ten days ahead of the original schedule. Up to now, overall progress has been smooth and in line with the phased plan requirements. Before the Chinese New Year, the plan is to complete the bidding work for the general construction contractor, and after the holiday, the overall renovation will officially begin. According to the current construction schedule, the entire project will be completed in the first quarter of 2027 and is expected to be put into use smoothly in the first half of the year.

At the construction site, multiple pile drivers are operating methodically, and building materials such as steel rebar and cement are neatly stacked. The construction personnel have clear divisions of labor, and from surveying and setting out to pile foundation pouring, every procedure strictly follows construction specifications, presenting a bustling scene of construction. The most striking aspects of this renovation are the substantial increase in venue capacity and the specialized upgrade of functions. Before the renovation, Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park Stadium had only 18,000 seats, but after reconstruction it will be expanded to 50,000 seats, becoming a truly large-scale professional football stadium. It is worth mentioning that this expansion is not simply a scale increase, but an "intensive upgrading" carried out under the conditions of the existing venue.