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Flushing Meadows Corona Park History & Development
Exclusive Coverage Of Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Special Section Dedicated To Our Coverage Of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Stories about the history of Flushing Meadows Corona Park and stories of developers trying to develop it and privatize it.
Governor Hochul Scraps the Ill Conceived LGA - Willets Point Air Train
Former Governor Cuomo's Air Train Seemed More About Catering to the Whims of the Billionaire Class, than in Streamlining Public Transit
March 15, 2023 / NYC Neighborhoods / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.
In 2017 I attended a Community Board meeting in Astoria where our urban planners talked about new improvements coming to LaGuardia Airport. Since then a number of those plans have come to fruition. But one of them, what at the time was called the third phase, the Air Train to LGA, has not. Use the link to see the thinking nearly six years ago when the plans had been drafted and the construction was about to begin. I'm happy to say that we flagged and reported to you a number of the issues with the LGA Air Train early on, which we've included in the list below.
The photo at right shows the CTA [Chicago Transit Authority] subway that runs along the Kennedy Expressway from downtown Chicago to O'Hare Airport which vies with Atlanta for the title of the busiest airport in the U.S..
The Former Emperor [Governor Cuomo] had No Clothes [Sound Public Interest Rationale]
On Monday, Governor Hochul announced what was already well known and expected, which was that the Air Train shuttling between LaGuardia Airport and Flushing Meadows Corona Park, would not be built.
There were any number of good reasons why the LGA Air Train should not have been built, such as: 1) the costs of building the train would cost more than five times the original estimated cost of under $500 million to over $2.5 billion, 2) then, implicit in a number of alternatives, there was the idiocy of connecting the LGA Air Train, to the second most trafficked subway line [the #7] in NYC, which was already nearing peak capacity pre-pandemic, 3) the politically and billionaire preferred alternative destination, Willets Point on Flushing Bay, had just been cleaned up after decades of environmental pollution, and would again be threatened again, and to top it all off, 4) the politically and billionaire preferred Willets Point alternative required all of the people traveling to and from LaGuardia on public transit, to travel out to Flushing first, before circling back around to LaGuardia Airport. The billionaires who would have benefitted from this include billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross and [now minority interest] Mets Club billionaire owners Saul B. Katz and Fred Wilpon. The new Mets baseball team owner, Steve Cohen, is also a billionaire.
CLICK here to read our report on Governor Hochul scraps the LGA to Flushing Meadows Corona Park Air Train.
Yankees Join Sheik For NYC Soccer
Sheik & Yankees Team Up For NYC Soccer Team
May 21, 2013 / Queens Buzz. The Yankees joined the Sheik to acquire an MLS NYC soccer team, thus adding an influential local owner to the roster of MLS stadium supporters. The Sheik's Manchester Club would own the majority shares.
MLS is seeking to locate a 13 acre stadium in the middle of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. If professional soccer continues growing in popularity, MLS could quickly outgrow the proposed 25,000 seat stadium, and need to expand. Plans are to begin MLS soccer play in NYC in 2015.
Click here for related story on the history / issues associated with building stadiums in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The photo above was taken at an out-of-league soccer game played at CitiField in 2012.
Flushing Meadows Corona Park Update
USTA Proposal Moves Ahead / QMA Hosts Visioning
April 22, 2013 / Queens Neighborhoods / Queens Buzz. In early April, there was a meeting held to vote on whether to give up 0.68 of an acre of Flushing Meadows Corona Park to the USTA to allow them to proceed with their expansion plans.
Most Queens elected officials have now taken public stands on the issue, as it is a matter of some concern with Queens voters. Nonetheless, in spite of their public statements, only a few City Councilmembers made the effort to show up to vote on it. According to a story in the Queens Chronicle, the only Queens City Councilmembers who showed up to vote on the proposed USTA Expansion Plan were: Daniel Dromm of Jackson Heights, Peter Koo of Flushing, Donovan Richards of Rosedale and Ruben Wills of Jamaica. As we reported earlier this year, the Queens Community Boards representing the neighborhoods that had surrounded the park, had split votes on the matter with three Community Boards voting for it, and three voting against it.
Outgoing [term limited] Borough President, Helen Marshall, was the Queens elected official who made the decision for the borough, supporting the USTA expansion. According to the Queens Chronicle story, she was quoted as saying that she insists the alienated parkland be replaced. Her statement is at odds with the Bloomberg Administration position taken earlier this year, where they said that the Flushing Meadows Corona parkland doesn't have to be replaced by the USTA, even though NY State law requires it [apparently there is some wiggle room given to the municipal executive].
The Queens Museum of Art hosted a visioning session to see what the general public would like to see come of the park. Julissa Ferreras, City Councilmember representing Corona was on hand to speak, as well as several students from the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn which has a highly respected program for sustainable urban development. Participants included over 100 local residents as well as representatives of the USTA.
Whose park is it? And whose park will it be? Stay tuned - as you are likely to decide the matter by whomever you vote for in this upcoming election. Click here to read an early account of Flushing Meadows Corona Park history and click here to read our second account about early Flushing Meadows Corona Park development with relevant analogies to some of the proposed developments working their way through the governing process today.
CB Votes Split On USTA Expansion Plan
March 14, 2013 / Flushing Corona / Issues Facing Queens / Queens Buzz. The USTA has asked the city of New York to give it .68 of an acre of Flushing Meadows Corona Park so that it can proceed with an expansion plan. The expansion plan is estimated to increase the sports complex capacity for the U.S. Open by about a third, while increasing the USTA footprint in the park by .68 of an acre. The USTA informed the audience attending the Community Board 3 meeting that this will result in more jobs in Queens. They also talked about the positive estimated annual $784 million economic impact that the USTA has had on NYC - according to a study done by a private consulting firm named AKRF, Inc.
The detractors informed the audience that this is the first step in a much larger effort toward a massive privatization of Flushing Meadows Corona Park by several large, well-
funded corporate interests. The opponents talked about three other proposals which were not a part of the USTA plan. These other proposals to develop private interests on public parkland include the development of a shopping mall by a private investment group in tandem with the owners of CitiField; 2) a condominium / hotel complex done by another group of private investors; and 3) a 13 acre soccer stadium by Major League Soccer, which is also a privately held corporation.
Community Board Tally & Boro Prez Candidates Positions
In the end Community Board 3 voted against the expansion plan, citing among other things, promises not kept when the USTA asked to expand its footpint in 1993. All six Community Boards have now voted on the USTA Expansion proposal, with three voting for it and three voting against it. We'll post a far more complete report on this Community Board Meeting at a later date.
While I was attending the Community Board 3 Meeting in Corona, all six Queens Borough Presidential candidates were attending a forum about the issues facing Queens at the Greater Astoria Historical Society in Astoria. The issue of turning over public parkland to private interests came up during the forum. To date only City Councilmember Tony Avella has come out against giving up public parkland to private interests. NY Senator Jose Peralta is the only other candidate to take a stance on the issue, but only on one of the proposed developments, namely the erection of the MLS Soccer Stadium on 13 acres of FMC Parkland [which he conditionally supports if MLS fulfills all of their promises]. All four other candidates have taken a wait-and-see stance on the issue.
Click here to read our past reports related to the proposed development plans for Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The first report provides an early history of Flushing Meadows Corona Park I and the second report provided an intermediate history of Flushing Meadows Corona Park II which included a number of relevant historic lessons related to sports complex developments in FMCP as well as NYC.
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Battle for the Heart of a Park ... and the Soul of a Borough
PART II - NYC Stadiums: Battle of the Titans
The NYC World's Fair: 1964 - 1965 in Flushing Queens
January 21, 2013 / Queens Neighborhoods / NYC Parks / Gotham Buzz NYC.
Click here for Part I of our report series on Developments in Flushing Meadows Corona Park where we journeyed back to the Corona Ash Dump, immortalized in the Great Gatsby, and later transformed into a World's Fair utopia by Robert Moses, Fiorello LaGuardia and the 1939 World's Fair committee.
The 1939 World's Fair attracted over 40 million people, but lost over $100 million, as it opened the year Nazi Germany beganinvading its European neighbors, and while Japan was busy invading China. Nonetheless, in spite of a financial failure for the 1939 World's Fair bondholders, the fair had enabled NYC and Robert Moses to complete phase one of his vision to transform the Corona Ash Dump into NYC's premier city park, and build a whole new network of highways around it.
Ebbets Field in Brooklyn & The Brooklyn Dodgers
We resume our story, after WWII, as a young lawyer in Brooklyn 
began working for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodgers played at Ebbets Field just east of Prospect Park in what is the now Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The year is 1943 as a 40 year-old lawyer, Walter O'Malley, leaves the Brooklyn Trust Company where he had oversight responsibilities for troubled companies, including the Brooklyn Dodgers.
You can click here to read Part II of our report on proposed developments in Flushing Meadows Corona Park entitled NYC Stadiums: Battle of the Titans.
Or click this link in the meantime to view Part I of our report series entitled - Out of the Ashes Rises the Phoenix - about the beginnings of Flushing Meadows Corona Park and the 1939 World's Fair.
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Battle for the Heart of a Park ... and the Soul of a Borough
The NYC World's Fair: 1939 - 1940 in Flushing Queens
PART ONE - Out of the Ashes Rises the Phoenix
January 12, 2013 / Queens Neighborhoods / NYC Parks / Gotham Buzz NYC.
Over the past six months we've been watching with interest as events have been unfolding regarding the building of a 25,000 seat soccer stadium right in the heart of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. There are also a number of other proposals working their way through the political process / local government, which calls for the cessation of public lands to build private enterprises on various sections of Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Currently four separate proposals are in process for planned developments in Flushing Meadow Corona Park. They include: 1) a chain store shopping mall / complex in the southwest corner of the Citifield parking lot [pink], 2) a housing / condominium / hotel complex on the lands the city acquired in its use of eminent domain to develop Willets Point [blue], 3) the expansion of the USTA facilities in the northwest section of the USTA franchise in the park [orange] and 4) the erection of a thirteen plus acre stadium / sports complex in the middle of Flushing Meadows Corona Park [yellowish green].
The graphic above was provided by one of the community groups opposed to the Flushing Meadow Corona Park developments. It's worth noting that most of the colored areas already have pavement or structures covering the land. The exception is that of the proposed Stadium & Concert venue [yellowish green], which would be a completely new development, replacing water vessels which were created for the Worlds Fair. See the map in the header of this series [top of page] where the dark red square represents the approximate acreage and location of the proposed stadium / concert venue.
Queens Buzz has put together a series of reports, which we will run in the coming days about the proposed developments in Flushing Meadow Corona Park. This report starts with a bit of the history of the park, which began around the turn of the last century when Flushing Meadows Corona Park was just an ashpile.
The focus of this report is the 1939 NYC World's Fair which was held in Flushing Meadow Park as it was then called.
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Sterling Equities & Related Companies Lose Court Battle - Willets Point Flushing Park Real Estate Development Steven Ross Saul Katz Fred Wilpon
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Sterling Equities & Related Companies Lose A Court Battle
Plans to Build Shopping Mall on Flushing Meadows Corona Park Land Reversed on Appeal, but Legal Wrangling will Continue
July 6, 2015 / Flushing Neighborhood / Queens Real Estate / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.
This report is based on an Associated Press report dated July 2, 2015 and a Queens Tribune story dated August 28, 2014.
In August of 2014, New York State Supreme Court Judge Manuel Mendez decided in favor of Related Companies / Sterling Equities by throwing out a lawsuit filed by the City Club of New York and NYS Senator Tony Avella.
The plaintiffs alleged that billionaire Stephen Ross's Related Companies, the real estate developers of Hunters Point South and the Hudson Yards, and the Sterling Equities which was co-founded by the NY Mets owners, mega-millionaires Saul B. Katz and Fred Wilpon, had not gone through the NYS legislature for the approval of the transfer of the parkland as required by law.
The lawsuit, filed in February 2014, alleged that the transfer of 47 acres of Flushing Meadows Corona Park land that currently represents the western part of the Mets parking lot, was done without following the procedure for a proper public review [see photo above right]. The City had proposed transferring the 47 acres to Related Companies / Sterling Equities who had planned to build a 1.4 million square foot shopping mall next to Citifield.
The NY City Council and the billionaire former Mayor Bloomberg approved the project in October 2013, but the proposal never went to Albany for a vote. According to the Queens Tribune report one of the plaintiffs said that the Judge Manuel Mendez's ruling goes against the Public Trust Doctrine, ignores longstanding case law history, and bestows too much power that was formerly the purview of the Board of Estimate in one person: the NYC Mayor.
On Thursday, July 2nd, 2015, the four-judge Appellate Court overturned Judge Mendez's decision and ruled that the Willets West Mall Project was illegal because the land is a part of Flushing Meadows Corona Park, in spite of its current paved over status as a parking lot [see 2009 photo above].
And because it is a part of the public parkland of the people, it may not be turned over to the real estate developers without approval of the NY State Legislature. The judges rejected the ruling in favor of the mall development made by Judge Manuel Mendez, wherein Mendez sided with the wealthy real estate developers who argued that the 54 year old, 1961 law authorizing the construction of Shea Stadium, also included a mall.
The photo above shows the Citifield parking lot in 2009, as it was being paved over following the demolition of Shea Stadium which was authorized in 1961. The new Citifield stadium built to replace Shea, is smaller.
According to the Associated Press report, a spokesman for the real estate developers said that they would appeal the decision.
Click here for the full report on Sterling Equities Saul Katz Fred Wilpon / Related Companies Stephen Ross lose court battle over Flushing Meadows Corona Park development in Flushing Queens.
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Use of Eminent Domain by NYC - Willets Point Development Flushing Meadows Corona Park
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Real Estate In Flushing - Willets Point
April 14, 2011 / Flushing Neighborhood / Queens Buzz / Gotham Buzz NYC.
This winter I attended the State of the Borough Address given by Queens Borough president Helen Marshall and a month later I attended a speech given by NYC deputy mayor of economic development, Robert K. Steel. This report captures their brief comments about Willets Point condominium and retail development project, as well as a considerable amount of research I did following those two presentations.
In the following report we provide you with a history of the effort to transform the Willets Point area and an outline of the proposed plans and including a detailing of some of the issues associated with the proposed development. A graphical depiction of the Willets Point development is shown above.
Click here to read more about Sterling Equities, Saul Katz & Fred Wilpon, Stephen Ross, Related Companies, Mayor Bloomberg use eminent domain on Willets Point real estate development project - controversy in Flushing Queens.
Real Estate In Flushing - Willets Point
April 14, 2011 / Flushing Neighborhood / Queens Buzz / Gotham Buzz NYC. Continued.
Willets Point Real Estate Developement Assessment
In 2002 city planners started working with local community groups to re-develop Willets Point. Over the course of the next few years it was decided that the neighborhood would have to be developed in toto versus a parcel by parcel approach because of some of the environmental conditions surrounding the neighborhood.
Some of the issues cited by city planners were widespread contamination from prior land use including ash deposits dating back a century and illegal dumping and oil spills from this century. They also cite that the area has a high water table [its adjacent to the Flushing Harbor / Long Island Sound] and that it lies within a 100 year flood plain.
In order to bring the neighborhood within FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] guidelines a significant investment would be required to raise sections of the neighborhood by as much as six feet. The neighborhood is also in need of upgrades to its sewage system. All of this lead them to the conclusion that the neighborhood should be transformed all at once. A March 2011 photo of perhaps the best known street in Willets Point is shown to your right.
Willets Point Real Estate Development Plan
Willets Point re-development has long been on city government's to do list. Between 2002 and 2006 information was gathered, discussions held and a plan began to emerge. From 2006 to 2008 the city started selling the plan to the various interested constituencies, and by the end of 2008 had sought and received approval to rezone the neighborhood for its plan. A graphical depiction of the new zoning codes is shown in the photo to your left.
The city proposal is to plow the current Willets Point neighborhood completely under and begin anew. The proposal calls for a 400,000 square foot convention center [Jacob Javits is 675,000 square feet], 1,700,000 square feet of retail space, 500,000 square feet of office space, about 350,000 square feet of open space, 150,000 square feet of community space, 700 hotel rooms, 5,500 units of housing [about 20% of it affordable housing], 6,700 parking spaces and a school with 850 seats.
Willets Point Development Benefits
One of the primary purposes of the Willets Point Development is to clean up what many consider an urban blight, and its associated environmental / FEMA issues. City planners also estimate the first non-Manhattan NYC convention center would generate 5,300 additional jobs. City planners would also like to make many of the buildings LEED [Leadership Engineering Efficiency Design] certified, which means they would be energy efficient.
Willets Point Issues - Congestion
Experts estimate that the Willets Point development will generate an additional 80,000 vehicle trips per day. To help ease congestion associated with such a significant increase in vehicular traffic in the area, city officials pledged to obtain federal and state approvals to add two ramps to the Van Wyck Expressway. As of this report they have not obtained either governing body approval. The graphic depiction to your right shows the proposed changes to the Van Wyck Expressway to accommodate the increase in traffic expected from the Willets Point development project.
And, like the Flushing Commons development, this development would increase the burden on the number 7 subway line which is already running at capacity during peak times and for which no further expansion is planned at this time.
Willets Point Real Estate Development Controversy
The Willets Point controversy appears to have arisen out of the desire of many Willets Point business owners to stay where they are, and to continue owning their own property and running their own businesses. In what has historically been a rarely used government action - the use of eminent domain - city government threatened to force landowners off their property against their will.
Currently there are still dozens of small landowners and one resident from Willets Point who continue to resist the city's re-development effort. The city has already acquired 90% of the land and they have already begun to work the site. The photo to your left was taken in March of 2011 and shows signs that the city has already begun to clean up the proposed Willets Point development site.
The group of owners, through their lawyer, challenged the city in the courts stating that the use of eminent domain requires demonstration of a public use. Since no developer has signed on to the plan outlined above, and won't sign up without the city paying many millions for all of the clean up and the new infrastructure, the group claims it's just a plan - not a public use.
Willets Point Real Estate Development - Flushing
A fire broke out the first week of April 2011 at Willets Point and a building of one of the holdouts was severely damaged. Approximately 140 firemen responded to extinguish the blaze - one of whom suffered minor injuries.
The city said it will use eminent domain to seize the remaining properties in 2012 if necessary. In an eminent domain seizure, a fair value payment is required to seize the land.
Airport Expansion – Queens Construction Projects
LaGuardia Airport opened its new control tower in January of 2011. It replaces the LaGuardia Airport control tower installed in anticipation of traffic for the 1964 World’s Fair.
Throgs Neck Bridge – Queens Construction Projects
The Throgs Neck Bridge connects Queens and the Bronx and turned 50 this year [erected 1961]. Approximately 114,000 people cross the bridge every day. Many inbound drivers come through the Kew Gardens interchange which will undergo some renovation this coming year. Watch for summer traffic.
Queens Real Estate - Related Stories
City Withdraws Plans To Use Eminent Domain
May 11, 2012 / Flushing / Queens Buzz. The Bloomberg Administration withdrew its threat to use eminent domain to condem the properties of the remaining Willets Point property-owners who did not want to sell their land. This statement was issued just prior to the beginning of court proceedings by the remaining holdouts, contesting the city's use of eminent domain.
The city had planned to remove the final holdouts and clear the way for a large new development that would include residential, commercial and office space, and parking. The city now owns 90% of the land in Willets Point, having bought out most of the prior owners.
Click here for a subsequent report about the Willets Point development in Flushing - eminent domain Sterling Companies Wilpon Katz Related Companies Steven Ross.
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