The MetroStars will announce plans for their new stadium and the Major League Soccer expansion team they have the rights to on Monday at a news conference in Manhattan. General Manager Nick Sakiewicz declined to disclose many details yesterday except to say that the stadium would be built in New Jersey.

"It will be a unique design, like a community center," Sakiewicz said yesterday of the stadium, which is expected to cost between $40 million and $60 million, with a big part of it financed privately. "Its amenities will be user friendly to the general community."

Sakiewicz said the stadium, which would replace Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., as the MetroStars home, would be a multipurpose facility. It will have a capacity of 25,000, which could be expanded to 40,000. He said it would take 18 months to be built and it would be finished in time for the 2003 season. Sakiewicz said that Metromedia, which operates the MetroStars, would begin operating a second team in New York in 2003 and that team would have its own stadium, most likely in Queens.

Sakiewicz said that Metromedia was prepared to invest a great deal of money in the MetroStars' stadium, but he did not know how much until it was decided where the stadium would be built.

"Ninety percent of the MetroStars fans come from New Jersey," Sakiewicz said. "A study showed that there are 4.2 million people emotionally connected to soccer in New York, and very few cross the river to watch us. There is a very huge population that is soccer starved on the other side of the river," Sakiewicz said.

Sakiewicz indicated that the Meadowlands and the Harrison, N.J., area were among the candidates for the new stadium. He said there was a six-month study done to evaluate the construction of the stadium. A big part of the stadium, he said, would be below ground and part of it would be covered to protect fans from bad weather.

"We will invite cities to look at the project in late March and early summer," he said. "It will be an evenly balanced stadium with no emphasis on corporate luxury boxes."