Cohen unveils $8 billion casino plan
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A map of the proposed plan to bring a casino and entertainment complex to Citi Field. Map via Queens Future
By Jacob Kaye
Nearly a year after Steve Cohen first began asking Queens residents what they want to see built on the 50-acre parking lot surrounding Citi Field, the Mets owner on Tuesday unveiled his long-expected $8 billion proposal to bring a casino and entertainment complex to the far corner of Northwest Queens.
Cohen’s desire for a casino next to the Mets’ stadium has long been known, but whether or not the state and city will allow him to build one there remains a mystery. Regardless, Cohen and his newly-announced business partners, Hard Rock International, joined around a dozen other developers on Tuesday when they formally announced their intention to pursue one of three downstate casino licenses expected to be handed out by the state’s Gaming Commission in the coming year.
In addition to the casino, the proposed project, dubbed Metropolitan Park, includes plans to build a hotel, 20 acres of new park space, a live music venue, a food hall and several parking garages in the immediate area surrounding the baseball stadium. Cohen’s group, Queens Future, also said that as part of the project, the developers would pay to renovate the mass transit station at Willets Point and would help build a new bike path leading to and from the area.
“It’s time the world’s greatest city got the sports and entertainment park it deserves,” Cohen said in a statement. “When I bought this team, fans and the community kept saying we needed to do better. Metropolitan Park delivers on the promise of a shared space that people will not only want to come to and enjoy, but can be truly proud of.”
Should the project move forward, Metropolitan Park would rival other baseball villages built around stadiums throughout the country, according to Cohen, who purchased the Mets in 2020. Cohen, who is not involved in the separate effort to bring the city’s first-ever soccer stadium to Willets Point across the street from Citi Field, has long bemoaned the fact that there is little else to do in the area immediately surrounding the stadium but “get your tire fixed or get a new muffler.”
“It has to be a place where people can come and enjoy themselves,” Cohen told a group of Queens community leaders in February. “I've listened to the fans, and the fans want something to do before the game, after the game.”
Despite the fact that Cohen first began holding public “visioning” sessions in relation to the project around a year ago – and that his lobbying for such a project over the past year has been well documented – the proposal is still in its earliest stages and not at all promised.
Though it is owned by the city and designated as park land, the 50-acre area slated for the development has been used as a parking lot by the Mets for decades. In addition to securing a casino license for the state, Cohen’s proposal would also require the state legislature to pass what is known as a park alienation bill, which would give Cohen explicit permission to pursue his casino and entertainment complex plan.
While Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry introduced such legislation during the previous legislative session, his counterpart in the State Senate, Jessica Ramos, has yet to commit to putting forth a park alienation bill and has generally been unwilling to publicly support Cohen’s bid to build a casino at the edge of her Western Queens district.
In a statement on Tuesday, Ramos said she plans to host a public town hall on Cohen’s proposal “later this month.” Ramos first held a town hall on the plans – prior to the release of its details – in May, and said at the time that she believed there was “still a lot of work to do if this project were to proceed.”
In her statement on Tuesday, Ramos said that she believes it’s “important that my neighbors look carefully at the details and we’ll continue together with our process.”
Cohen will also likely have to get the approval of the City Council, the mayor, the local community board and the Queens borough president. Though the process for casino approval is not yet defined, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams recently announced that the city would soon begin to create a process for assessing casino proposals given the impending release of the downstate casino licenses.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, one of the people Cohen would likely have to win over, said in a statement that his approval of the project will hinge on its total benefit to the surrounding neighborhoods.
“As I have made clear throughout my time in office, any developer that seeks to put shovels in the dirt must come prepared to deliver significant benefits to the surrounding community in the form of local hiring, economic opportunities and much more,” Richards said in a statement to the Eagle.
“To that end, I’m encouraged by Steve Cohen’s Metropolitan Park plan and its numerous community-centric proposals,” he added. “Should this project move ahead, I look forward to working with our public and private sector partners to ensure it delivers for workers, businesses and families in North Queens and across the World’s Borough.”
When the proposal eventually begins to make its way through the public review process, it’s likely to face some pushback.
A number of groups based in nearby Flushing, including the Flushing Anti-Displacement Alliance, the Flushing Workers Center, the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce and Guardians of Flushing Bay, have joined in opposition to the proposal, which they say will “exploit local communities” and take away the potential for the valuable parkland to again be turned into a park.
“The proposed casino takes over 50 acres of publicly-owned parkland situated in the middle of multiple environmental justice communities that already face threats of residential and commercial displacement,” the Flushing for Equitable Development and Urban Planning coalition says on their website. “Instead of giving away over 50 acres of our public land so that a billionaire can profit, the FED UP coalition believes that we should improve and invest in the parkland adjacent to Citi Field by building a real community park.”
But Cohen’s plan will not be without its support.
Queens’ local business community has backed the project, as have a number of local leaders.
“Queens has long deserved a space that brings everything together – new green space, 365-day-per-year entertainment, better connectivity and a real job creator in the area around Citi Field,” said Thomas Grech, the president and CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce. “No other project has done so much work to truly partner with the community. And it’s this bottom-up approach that gives everyone a voice right from the beginning that works.”
While the proposed casino is at the center of Cohen’s plans, the proposal includes a number of other ventures and facilities that Cohen’s group says members of the public called for during the numerous visioning sessions the group held.
Directly next to the stadium would be a greenway and a number of small parks separating the stadium from the casino and entertainment complex. The greenspace would run north toward Flushing Bay, according to the proposal.
On the opposite side of the park would be a number of restaurants and bars, as well as a sportsbook facility.
Just next door to the sports betting business would be the proposed casino, conference spaces, and a live music venue.
Heading further into what is currently the parking lot, the proposal calls for several hotel towers and a parking garage.
On the other side of the 7 line tracks would be new community athletic fields and a playground, according to the proposal.
South of the stadium’s right field line, which currently is home to an auxiliary parking lot, Cohen is proposing building a food hall and a public plaza.
In all, Cohen claims the project will result in 15,000 construction and permanent jobs.
In addition to Hard Rock, Cohen has also partnered with SHoP Architects, a New York-based firm, Field Operations, a landscape architecture firm, and McKissack, a design and construction firm.
