HOK Sport, which has designed dozens of major league baseball parks across the United States, is part of the Team McAlpine Consortium picked to deliver the showpiece venue for the games.

The Kansas City-based firm will design the 80,000-seat stadium to host Olympic track and field events and the opening and closing ceremonies.

The consortium is led by British building contractors Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd., which built Arsenal soccer club's new 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium.

The Olympic Delivery Authority, which is responsible for the venues, said it received ``a number'' of other bids but McAlpine was the ``only one that met all the prequalification criteria.''

ODA chief executive David Higgins said he hoped to complete negotiations with the consortium early next year.

``The Olympic Stadium will be the centre piece of the Olympic Park and we will deliver an outstanding venue for the games with a post-games legacy of which the U.K. can be truly proud,'' he said.

The stadium is projected to cost between 300 million pounds and 400 million pounds ($630 million Cdn and $840 million Cdn). There are plans to reduce the seating capacity to 25,000 after the Olympics and turn the venue into a track and field stadium.

The Arsenal stadium project was completed in two years and within budget, in sharp contrast to the delays and cost overruns which have marred the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium.

The McAlpine group also delivered the main Olympic stadium for the 2000 Sydney Games. The group also includes international engineering firms Buro Happold and M-E Engineering Inc.