Willets Point soccer stadium moves to final stage of approval
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The proposal to bring a soccer stadium to Willets Point was approved by the City Planning Commission on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Rendering via NYCFC
By Jacob Kaye
The City Planning Commission on Wednesday unanimously approved plans to bring the city’s first-ever soccer stadium to Willets Point.
All 12 members of the commission voted in support of what has been dubbed phase two of the Willets Point redevelopment plan, which, in addition to the 25,000-seat soccer stadium, includes plans to build 1,400 units of affordable housing, a hotel, several parking garages, retail space, pedestrian plazas and open space.
The vote sends the project to its near-final stage of review – the City Council, which is largely expected to approve the proposal in the coming weeks. More often than not, the Council votes the way of the local councilmember on land use decisions and local Councilmember Francisco Moya has been arguably the soccer stadium project’s biggest booster.
Following the legislature’s vote, the Willets Point plan will likely get its final stamp of approval from Mayor Eric Adams, who unveiled the details of the project around a year and a half ago from inside the Queens Museum and who has touted the development as one of his administration’s greatest efforts to tackle the city’s housing crisis.
Though the commission voted on around a dozen different development proposals on Wednesday, the Willets Point development was virtually the only plan that drew vocalized support from the CPC’s commissioners.
CPC Chair Dan Garodnik, a longtime supporter of the project, called the development plan for the second phase of Willets Point “thorough,” and congratulated “everybody who was involved in [the] project.”
The commission’s vice chairperson, Kenneth Knuckles, called the proposal a “monumental project and vision.”
The commissioners’ favorable view of the plan has been consistent with the reception it's gotten from the local community board, the local councilmember, the borough president, business leaders and fans of New York City Football Club, who will – barring any hiccups – call the neighborhood home by 2027.
The city’s review of the project drew an unusual amount of interest, mostly from fervent fútbol fans and labor union members who attended hours of local community board meetings that featured presentations on the stadium.
"The club is grateful that the City Planning Commission voted to approve a transformational project for Willets Point, unlocking the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in over 40 years, thousands of jobs, and NYC's first-ever, union-built soccer stadium," New York City Football Club Vice Chairman Marty Edelman said in a statement on Wednesday.
“NYCFC committed ten years ago to build our stadium in the five boroughs, and today's vote gets us one step closer to bringing this promise to life in Queens – the World’s Borough will be our home for The World’s Game,” Edelman added.
The positivity surrounding the project has served as a major break from the reactions to previous plans to develop Willets Point, which, for over a century, has been seen as a blighted, polluted and undesirable parcel of land sandwiched between western and eastern Queens.
In recent decades, the city, which owns a large portion of the 63-acres once known as the Iron Triangle, has made effort after effort to develop the area. Several proposals for the land have failed to come to fruition, including a plan to build a shopping mall in the area that was shot down in court.
All but one attempt to develop Willets Point have failed.
That exception – the plan voted on by the CPC on Wednesday as well as the proposal for the first phase of the development that was passed by the City Council last year – has seen little opposition since its general configuration was introduced by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2021.
In combination with the first phase of the development, which is currently under construction, the development at Willets Point will represent the largest affordable housing project pursued by the city in nearly half a century.
The city claims that the project, which is being led by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, New York City Football Club and developers The Related Companies and Sterling Equities, will generate $6 billion in revenue, create 14,000 construction jobs and 2,500 units of income restricted housing – 1,400 of those units would be built as part of phase two while the remaining 1,100 units would be built as part of the first phase of the development. The project is also expected to cost taxpayers around $516 million in taxes that NYCFC will not be required to pay as a result of building on the site, according to reporting by the New York Times.
In addition to the housing, the first phase of the project includes plans to build 22,000 square feet of retail space, around 5,000 square feet of community facilities, over 30,000 square feet of open space and a new K-8 school with 650 seats, which is being designed by the School Construction Authority in a separate effort. With the exception of the school, phase one is expected to be completed in 2026.
In all, the project essentially amounts to an entirely new neighborhood in the World’s Borough.
“Today’s vote from the City Planning Commission is another huge milestone in delivering a generational investment in Willets Point, including the largest new affordable housing development in over 40 years and the city’s first soccer specific stadium that will be 100 percent privately financed,” said EDC President and CEO Andrew Kimball.
“The Willets Point transformation project…will build a new neighborhood in New York City with much needed infrastructure, public open space, and retail resulting in a new neighborhood for many New Yorkers to live, work, and play,” he added.
Community Board 7 approved the project in a near-unanimous vote in early December. Their approval of the project came after the city promised it would explore building a new police precinct on the other side of Flushing Creek to account for the new residents expected to inhabit the neighborhood before the end of the decade.
In January, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards approved the proposal and called it a “big win” for Queens.
Though the project is now headed to its final stages of approval, not all the details of the plans have been worked out.
Yet to be finalized is the breakdown of the affordable units in the second phase.
During Richards’ review of the project, the developers behind the project agreed to make the income restrictions for the phase two units similar to those agreed upon for phase one. However, the exact breakdown has not yet been set in stone.
In phase one, 133 units, or 15 percent of the total phase one units, will be rented to formerly homeless New Yorkers. Sixty units, or 7 percent will rent at 30 percent of the area median income; 99 units, or 11 percent, will rent at 40 percent AMI; 60 units will rent at 60 percent AMI; 109 units, or 12 percent, will rent at 80 percent AMI; 339 units, or 38 percent, will rent at 100 percent AMI; and 80 units will rent at 120 percent AMI.
Also yet to be finalized is the plan for parking at the soccer stadium.
Though a tentative agreement has been reached between NYCFC and the Mets to allow the soccer team to use 4,000 parking spaces in Citi Field’s lot during match days, a final agreement has not yet been signed.
