NYCFC finalizes Willets Point lease with city
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The Queens Borough Board last week approved a lease agreement between the city and New York City Football Club, Queens Development Group and the Economic Development Corporation for a plot of land in Willets Point, which will soon be home to NYCFC’s soccer stadium. Rendering via NYCFC
By Jacob Kaye
A group of Queens officials last week unanimously agreed to hand over the keys to a city-owned plot of land in Willets Point to developers who plan to soon build atop it over 1,000 units of affordable housing and the city’s first-ever stadium dedicated to soccer.
The Queens Borough Board, which is comprised of the Queens borough president, the borough’s City Council delegation and its community board chairs, all voted to approve a lease between the city and Queens Development Group, the New York City Economic Development Corporation and New York City Football Club, the soccer team that plans to call the soon-to-be-revitalized neighborhood home come 2027.
With the lease now finalized, the second phase of the Willets Point redevelopment will soon break ground.
Though largely ceremonial, the borough board’s approval of the lease was no small deal.
The history of Willets Point is long and winding, and the city’s decades of efforts to develop it have mostly been filled with failure. Their efforts have spanned at least three mayoral administrations and countless meetings before the local community board, which has been discussing the redevelopment of the neighborhood once known as the Iron Triangle for over 20 years.
The lease agreement for phase two of the development – phase one is currently under construction and, with the exception of the soccer stadium, isn’t much different from phase two – marks the end of the city’s approval process for the project and clears the way for construction to begin.
In all, phase two of the development of 23-acres of the once-polluted corner of Northwest Queens includes the 25,000-seat soccer stadium, 1,400 units of affordable housing, a hotel, several parking garages, retail space, pedestrian plazas and open space.
While the stadium is expected to host its first game in 2027, the housing in phase two is expected to open in the years that follow. But just when residents will move in next to the stadium remains unclear.
Phase one of the project includes plans to build 1,000 units of affordable housing, 22,000 square feet of retail space, around 5,000 square feet of community facilities, over 40,000 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. The school is expected to open in 2027.
Combined, the project is estimated to be the largest affordable housing project pursued by the city in the last 50 years.
While there were still a few questions left to ask and a few details left to iron out, the lease agreement for phase two was largely a done deal heading into last week’s meeting.
The Queens Development Group, a joint venture between real estate developers Sterling Equities and Related Companies, will lease out the land on which the affordable housing and hotel will be built for up to 99 years.
The stadium site will be leased out by NYCFC for 49 years, with the option to extend the lease another 25 years.
The soccer club will pay $500,000 in rent for the first year of the lease, with the payment increasing each year until it reaches approximately $4 million a year by the final year of the lease.
But while the stadium will pay rent for the land, they will be exempt from paying property taxes. According to reporting by the New York Times, the exemption is expected to cost taxpayers around $516 million.
The issue was briefly brought up during last week’s borough board meeting.
“You're not paying property taxes because it's a lease,” said Frank Taylor, the chair of Queens Community Board 3, which covers several neighborhoods west of Willets Point. “That doesn't benefit the tax base over there at all.”
The tax break was also the reason for the sole “no” vote against the project in the City Council, which voted 47-1 to approve phase two of the project in April.
“The economics and public value of this transaction must be questioned,” said City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who represents Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Woodside. “This is a bad deal for New York City and sets a terrible precedent for land use.”
Also receiving some skepticism from board members last week were potential traffic issues expected to come from the building of the stadium and the combined 2,400 units of housing.
While EDC officials attempted to assuage board members’ worries, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards gave a more sober view of what the several major roadways surrounding Willets Point may look like in the near future.
“Traffic – good luck, we're in New York City,” the BP said. “We're not going to solve all the traffic issues on the [Brooklyn Queens Expressway] or the Van Wyck [Expressway] or Cross Island [Parkway] with this project. There will be challenges.”
Phase two of the Willets Point redevelopment. The city’s lease with New York City Football Club, Queens Development Group and the Economic Development Corporation for the land the development will be built on was approved by the Queens Borough Board last week. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye
As part of the agreement, NYCFC will not host home games within seven hours of a New York Mets home game, who play at Citi Field directly across the street from the upcoming stadium, in an effort to alleviate traffic woes.
A date for the groundbreaking for the second phase of the project has not yet been set.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that NYCFC will pay $5,000 in rent for the first year of the lease. It will pay $500,000 the first year of its lease with the city.
