Metropolitan Park unanimously approved by local committee
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The Community Advisory Committee for Metropolitan Park voted unanimously to approve the $8 billion casino project on Tuesday, sending it to the state for final consideration. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Mets owner Steve Cohen’s $8 billion casino plan dubbed Metropolitan Park was unanimously approved by its local committee on Tuesday, a crucial victory that puts it in contention for one of three coveted downstate casino licenses.
The Community Advisory Committee for Metropolitan Park voted 6-0 at Queens Borough Hall on Tuesday to send the plan to the State Gaming Commission, despite vocal opposition from some locals and from one elected official with a representative on the committee.
The CAC vote for Metropolitan Park was the final of the original eight developers hoping to nab one of the licenses. Only four CACs, including Metropolitan Park’s, approved the projects they were tasked with reviewing.
In addition to Metropolitan Park, the proposal to expand Queens’ Resorts World, a casino plan from Bally’s in the Bronx and a proposed expansion of the MGM Empire Casino in Yonkers will now go before the State Gaming Commission, which is expected to pick three developers to award the licenses by the end of the year.
“This is truly a historic moment for the world's borough,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, a longtime backer of Metropolitan Park.
Richards lauded Cohen’s plan to build a Hard Rock casino, a hotel, a music venue, restaurants, retail and convention center and park space on what is now Citi Field’s parking lot.
The developers claim the plan will create around 23,000 jobs – around 17,100 would be temporary, construction jobs, while the remaining 6,081 would be permanent jobs.
Cohen also committed in his proposal to funding improvements to the Mets-Willets Point 7 train station that, under his plan, would connect with Metropolitan Park. However, those changes would first require approval from the MTA.
“We're talking about creating more than 20,000 good paying union jobs,” Richards said. “We're talking about creating hundreds of millions, if not millions of dollars in wages for Queen families, especially those who, five years ago, were on the front lines of the pandemic.”
“Projects like this are proof that there is no ceiling for the World's Borough,” he added. “We're the heartbeat of the city now.”
In a statement, a spokesperson from Metropolitan Park applauded the committee’s approval.
“The Community Advisory Committee’s unanimous approval underscores the deep and broad community support behind Metropolitan Park,” said spokesperson Karl Rickett. “We are grateful for the opportunity to move forward in this process and be one step closer to making Metropolitan Park’s community-first vision a reality.”
Michael Sullivan, Cohen’s chief of staff who spearheaded the Metropolitan Park effort, was present for the vote, but declined to take questions from reporters on the $8 billion plan’s approval and the vocal opposition to it.
Committee members Assemblymember Larinda Hooks, Councilmember Francisco Moya and appointees from Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul also voted yes.
Moya and Hooks had expressed support for Metropolitan Park prior to the forming of the committee, and appointees from Adams and Hochul voted in favor of all eight original casino proposals.
The surprise vote on Tuesday came from George Dixon, an East Elmhurst community leader who was appointed by State Senator Jessica Ramos, who opposes Metropolitan Park.
“[I voted yes] because I believe it's best for Queens,” Dixon told the Eagle immediately following his vote. “From my own observation and conversations with people from my community, they thought it was a good idea.”
The $8 billion casino plan from Mets owner Steve Cohen cleared a major hurdle on Tuesday. Rendering via Metropolitan Park
Ramos, who declined to appoint herself to the committee unlike many of her local colleagues, disagrees. The lawmaker has been highly critical of the project and declined to introduce land use legislation in Albany last year that would have allowed Cohen to build on Citi Field’s parking lot, which is owned by the city, leased to the Mets and technically designated as parkland.
State Senator John Liu instead introduced the bill to grant the permission to Cohen, along with Hooks, who took on the bill following the retirement of her predecessor Jeff Aubry, in the Assembly.
In a statement immediately following the vote, Ramos said the CAC’s ruling “failed to serve the people.”
“Working people should not have to depend on a disgraced billionaire with an extraordinary record of violating the public’s trust,” she said. “Gambling on a casino to be the economic saving grace for families to finally build generational wealth is unrealistic and unfair to the people who deserve better...I will never be complicit in trading away the streets that raised me and are raising my children and yours.”
In a separate statement, Ramos said that she appointed Dixon to the CAC in “good faith,” and said that Dixon had told her he remained undecided in a phone call on Tuesday morning.
Ramos was not the only one against Metropolitan Park.
A coalition of local groups and community members fiercely opposed the plan, arguing that its community benefits were not guaranteed and that it would be harmful to the community both financially and environmentally.
“It builds a massive, Vegas-style casino in the middle of a public park” said Rebecca Pryor, a member of the Guardians of Flushing Bay, who were a vocal opponent.
Groups who spoke against Metropolitan Park have also argued that their voices were stifled by the CAC.
Earlier this month, Hooks, the chair of the committee, abruptly ended the final public hearing on the plan after a clash with locals against the project with more than 50 people still signed up to speak.
“We're not shocked by the news,” Pryor said of the vote on Tuesday. “We're disappointed, for sure, but we're not surprised.”
Speaking with reporters after the vote, Richards said that Cohen and his allies did their due diligence in reaching out to the community, and argued that there were safeguards in place to limit any negative impacts.
“I think at the end of the day, they're going to be the same ones taking advantage of this site,” he said about those who spoke in opposition. “We're very serious about when we are given commitments, these folks back here follow up. So as long as I'm here, I know the promises will be kept.”
With only four of the initial eight casino proposals making it through to the State Gaming Commission, there is a significant possibility that Queens’ two proposals ultimately get the greenlight.
In the last month, three projects in Manhattan and one in Coney Island were killed by their CACs.
Resorts World’s $5 million expansion plan cleared its CAC unanimously last week, as did MGM’s plan for expansion in Yonkers.
Bally’s proposal to put a casino just a few hundred feet of the Whitestone Bridge was approved 5-1 on Monday, with the only “no” vote coming from local Councilmember Kristy Marmorato
Richards is all in on Queens doubling down on casinos, and has said he wants to make Queens a “live, work and play destination.”
“I'm getting both,” he said on Tuesday.
