NEW YORK | Willets Point Development (Flushing)

[Hypothalamus]

Originally Posted by Eveningsong

I thought the whole area was going to be re-developed? This is going to be a huge disappointment considering the whole area will have 3 huge parking lots and some of those business will still stay. Also the Mets need to start winning. Who votes of them anyway. Another 25-150 season.

Are you talking about the parking lots for the mall and Citi Field?

[Perklol]

Originally Posted by tubeworm

Are you talking about the parking lots for the mall and Citi Field?

yeah

[Hypothalamus]

JEREMIAH'S VANISHING NEW YORK:

Willets Vanishing
THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014
POSTED BY JEREMIAH MOSS AT 7:38 AM

Photographer Tim Schreier sent in a collection of depressing photographs showing what's become of the Iron Triangle at Willets Point. What had been a bustling community of small business people and their customers is now a dead zone, waiting to be flattened by bulldozers set in motion by Bloomberg.

[...]

[theWestisDead]

Wow, taken out of context, these photos could be of some deserted war-torn African city rather than in NYC...

[Busy Bee]

Mogadishu

[chris08876]

Would make for a good film set. But, its good that this area is being demolished for something a little more 21st Century.

[WTCman7301]

Originally Posted by Hypothalamus

JEREMIAH'S VANISHING NEW YORK:

Willets Vanishing
THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014
POSTED BY JEREMIAH MOSS AT 7:38 AM

These pictures resemble a modern-day "Valley of Ashes".

[BiggieSmalls]

On August 20th Judge Manuel Mendez issued his decision to DISMISS the lasuit brought against QDC LLC to prevent the construction of a "mega mall" in the 40 acres that was previously Shea Stadium and today is a parking lot.

Appeal is expected.

[Perklol]

Originally Posted by NYguy

http://observer.com/2012/05/17/citi-...um-with-malls/

Citi Field’s Suicide Squeeze! Redone Willets Point Will Bracket Stadium With Huge Malls


An 800,000 square-foot mall will be built on the Citi Field parking lot (right), followed by a 680,000 square-foot mall on the edge of Willets Point (left). Because who doesn’t want to go shopping after the Mets lose?

What's going on here? I forgot about this one...

Anyway this whole place is a mess according to post #165. Is Citifield field really surrounded by 7 parking lots?? Wow no wonder its a lightly used #7 station unless there is a crappy event from said stadium. Even worse its an express stop that isn't being used to its potential like the Main st stop (which is the busiest in Queens and right next door). Also the Mets are destined to lose for eternity (or when NYC goes underwater which isn't that far off...), who will go shopping after seeing them lose???

[BiggieSmalls]

the area is horribly planned. 126th Street separates Citi from the Willets Junk Yard Chop Shops in the East running up to the Flushing Rivber. to the west, north and south are vast empty parking lots..
past the rail road tracks and an MTA Storage Yard is the US Tennis Center where the US Open is going on right now. Then the Lovely Flushing Meadows Park..


immediately to the west is where Shea Stadium once stood. In 1961 the State passed a LAW that gave the mets rights to use the land in perpetuity for useful purposes. The City has determined that a Mall is a useful civic purpose.
The opponents are claiming that these PARKING LOTS are part of the greater Flushing Meadows Park that largely lies south of the rail tracks beyond the MTA Yard.

Parking is much more efficiently delivered in tiered structures. the use of 20 something acres for Parking is ludicrous.

So the plan is clear the Willets Chop Shops in phases and put in temporary parking while they re mediate the area from years of industrial pollution. Then Build "Willets West" to the West of the Stadium. Ultimately tiered parking will reside North of CitiField and within the Mall Structure.

i think the Sterlings have the rights to develop the area between Citi and the rail road tracks. They also control the west parking lot according to the judge's recent ruling.

95% of the Phase One Area immediately along 126th Street is vacant (what you see in the pics). That will be cleared shortly.

[chris08876]

Some photos before its all demolished:












==========================
Credit: Nathan Kensinger ; http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/0...evelopment.php

[sparkling]

Not much going on here but the neighboring Sky View Parc project keeps growing in size.

A Robust Reception After a Rocky Start

C. J. HUGHES
FEB. 6, 2015


Interest was strong during a recent unveiling of the Grand at Sky View Parc, the next phase in an ongoing mixed-use project in Flushing, Queens. In one weekend day last month, buyers snapped up more than half the units for sale.

Sky View Parc, a mixed-use project in Flushing, Queens, that stumbled during the recession, only to right itself quickly in subsequent years, is barreling ahead with its next phase to a very strong reception.

The 14-acre complex of three condominium towers, with a total of 448 apartments atop a shopping mall, is adding a fourth tower on that same mall roof. The new tower will have 235 units with balconies. And two more high-rises, with a total of about 560 units, are scheduled to follow in the next few years.

Though the new tower is barely out of the ground, interest has been intense. Buyers snapped up more than half of the units in a single weekend day last month when sales launched, according to Onex Real Estate Partners, its developer.

Bordered by train tracks, the polluted Flushing Creek and a city housing project, Sky View Parc can seem an unlikely hit. But Flushing, a major hub for New York’s Asian population, is enjoying a burst in interest, and in development projects.

“I’ve always wondered why Sky View has done so well, considering its surroundings,” said Xuejie Wong, a real estate lawyer who works with neighborhood developers. But for the stampede of buyers, “it’s the attraction of being in a self-contained community.”

With floor-to-ceiling windows and glass balcony railings, the newest tower was intended to have a much lighter look than its more fortresslike predecessor. A luxury vibe was wanted, too, which explains the Bosch appliances, Grohe faucets and Kohler tubs, said Michael Dana, the president and chief executive of Onex. “The architecture is quite different,” Mr. Dana said. He added, “There’s nothing like this in Queens.”

Naturally, prices at the tower, to be completed in fall 2016, are also steeper than at its predecessors. Units are listed for $950 a foot, or from $450,000 for studios to $2 million for three-bedrooms, said Mr. Dana, who added that 120 people signed contracts on Jan. 24 at that sales kickoff event, which started early, and finished late, because about 700 prospective buyers showed up.

In contrast, units in the first three towers, which wrapped sales in 2013, went for $750 a foot, according to Onex. In Flushing, the median list price for condos and co-ops is about $500 a square foot, according to a recent search on StreetEasy.com. This fall, the fifth 275-unit tower will go vertical, and next winter, the sixth and final one, also with 275 units, will be built. The three new towers, which will share the name the Grand at Sky View Parc, will cost $600 million to develop, according to Onex, as part of the $1.3 billion Sky View Parc project.

While Sky View may be buoyant now, the mood was once somber. In 2008, Onex and its then-partner Muss Development, a developer based in Queens, broke ground on a former parking lot in a bedraggled industrial area that had been rezoned for residential use in the 1990s.

But the project suffered construction delays during the recession. It was supposed to be completed in 2009 but didn’t open until 2011, which prompted a lawsuit from frustrated buyers. Ultimately, more than 100 of them received refunds, and in summer 2011, sales essentially started again from scratch, though the second time seemed a charm. The building was sold out by 2013.

After those sales, Muss sold its share of the development to Onex. What has likely helped the project steam ahead is the success of the Shops at Skyview Center, a bustling multilevel, 800,000-square-foot mall. Fully leased, including national retailers like Nordstrom Rack and Target, as well as restaurants like Grandma’s Dim Sum, the mall has about 5 million visitors annually, Onex said.

Though the mall, and the sidewalk outside it, can be crowded and loud, Sky View provides a garden on its roof to allow its residents to achieve some peace. Nearly five acres, the open space features a putting green, dog park and tennis courts, and it will be joined by a few more acres of amenities, including an outdoor pool, when the Grand at Sky View Parc opens. There will also be a 10,000-square-foot gym, with Turkish baths. Manhattan’s skyscrapers line the horizon.

Sky View is not the only planned residential development in Flushing to rely on a heavy dose of retail. One Fulton Square, partly constructed on nearby 39th Avenue, for instance, combines its condos with a Hyatt Place hotel and three levels of stores. “When you go to Asia, you see lots of towers built on top of retail like this,” Mr. Dana said.

Whether that’s the draw, Asian buyers are coming, both from the area and beyond. In the first three towers at Sky View, 90 percent of the buyers were Chinese or of Chinese descent, and about 20 percent were from China, according to Onex, and the from-China crowd is expected to be even larger at the next three towers.

[sparkling]

Auto shops will vacate Queens' Willets Point, paving way for new mall
Some 50 businesses agreed to vacate the Corona section of Queens, which is slated for a $3 billion mixed-use project, in return for $5.8 million that will go toward their new Bronx home.

JOE ANUTA
MARCH 26, 2015

A group of Queens automotive businesses who held up a huge mixed-use development in Willets Point have settled a lawsuit with the city and the project's developers, removing a sizable obstacle for the first phase of construction.

Under the agreement dated March 19, all litigation was dropped and a $5.8 million escrow fund was created to aid in the businesses’ move to the Bronx.

The businesses, known as the Sunrise Cooperative, have agreed to vacate Willets Point by June 1, though many have already left. In return, the city will pay a total of $4.8 million into an escrow fund, while the development team of the Related Cos. and Sterling Equities will chip in $960,000. The cooperative, a collection of nearly 50 businesses that have operated along the unpaved streets in a part of Corona, will also be required to contribute $143,000 into the fund.

"Sunrise is happy that they got to an agreement," said the Urban Justice Center’s Harvey Epstein, who represented the group in court. "We look forward to building a large auto co-op, and to everyone in New York starting to use it."

The co-op will use most of the fund to build out a facility inside an existing building at 1080 Leggett Ave. in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, according to Mr. Epstein, though the cash can also be used by Sunrise to pay rent to the site's landlord. The group plans to convert the one-story property into an auto mall with stalls for each of the businesses within six months, and will also borrow $550,000 from the city to cover some of those costs.

“The relocation of the Sunrise Cooperative represents a critical step in the advancement of the Willets Point development, which will bring thousands of jobs, units of housing and square feet of retail space to northern Queens,” said Economic Development Corp. President Kyle Kimball.

Related and Sterling are spending $3 billion to build a 1.4 million square-foot mall to the west of Citi Field, along with retail and about 2,500 apartments on about 22 acres to the east of the stadium in Willets Point. But in February 2014, Sunrise filed suit in state Supreme Court, alleging that the displacement of the businesses violated several laws.

It was unclear exactly how many more businesses need to be relocated, but the city estimated that nearly two-thirds of the 130 shops have now received some form of compensation.

“There were many layers of negotiation that needed to take place,” said City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras, who represents the area and helped hash out the agreement.

But a representative of about 20 shops still left in the footprint said many owners couldn’t afford to pay dues to join the Sunrise Cooperative, and are now pondering their fate as the project moves forward.
“We are legal businesses that have been paying taxes here for decades,” said Arturo Olaya, president of the Willets Point Defense Committee of Small Businesses and Workers. “What is going to happen with us?”

The Willets Point developers hope to move forward with the project, which requires cleaning the soil at part of the site before construction can begin.

“We are gratified to have reached a resolution and excited that a revitalized Willets Point is another step closer to becoming a reality,” a spokesman for Related and Sterling said in a statement.

[chris08876]

A followup to post #192.

= = = = = = = = = =

Uniqlo Signs Lease in Flushing Mall

Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, known for its affordability and high-quality basics, has signed an 8,000-square-foot lease at at The Shops at SkyView Center in Queens.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Uniqlo will open at the 700,000-square-foot mall at 40-24 College Point Blvd. in Flushing in the coming weeks, joining Nordstrom Rack, Old Navy and Target at the complex.

The Journal reported that asking rents at the mall range from $75 to $125 per square foot.

Onex Real Estate Partners, which owns the 14-acre Sky View Parc development that includes the mall, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Uniqlo already has a sizable presence in New York City; it has outposts at 139 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, 31 West 34th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, 666 Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street and 546 Broadway between Prince and Spring Streets in Manhattan and 2656 Richmond Avenue on Staten Island.

==================================
http://commercialobserver.com/2015/0...flushing-mall/

[sparkling]

Related CEO Jeffrey Blau has an ambitious project at Hudson Yards, but he’s also overhauling CitiBike and taking on Willets Point

TERENCE CULLEN
4/08/2015

Moving to another project now. The auto bodies at Willets Point have dropped their case against redevelopment in the area. What’s the next step forward now and what’s Related’s part in that?

We are 50-50 partners with the Wilpon family. Jeff [Wilpon] just left here actually. Basically there’s two phases to this. The first phase is about a million square feet of retail located on basically the site where the Shea Stadium used to be—the parking lot. Before we do that, we’re actually going to clean up the portion of the auto body sites that the city had purchased and we build enough parking spaces there to basically replace what the retail will replace in the future.

When that’s done, we’ll build a million feet of enclosed retail. And then phase two is a mix of every other [building type] that exists—basically office, retail, residential, affordable housing. I think there’s some convention space.

One thing that [then Mayor Michael] Bloomberg wanted to do was clean this whole thing out. He got halfway there and I think they ran out of money or time—probably both. So then they put out an RFP, which was basically to build on the area that we call phase two. It’s got some tough ground conditions. It’s really all fill.

The ability for people to compete on that and actually create a new value was impossible. I had known [Mr. Wilpon] for a long time and I called him. I knew he was going to bid. I said, “That is not the smart solution here, ’cause you have all this land over here. And if we can convince the city to basically let us build over here, they’ll get the same. Essentially we’ll pay them for land that you already own. But we’ll move the right to develop and just cap, at least in the short term, that site.”

I think because of that we were able to win. So we’re going through the process and getting all our approvals and I think we’ll be able to do a million feet. It’s a big deal.

Do you have any potential tenants for that area yet?

Not really. It’s too far out. We gotta get through a few more approvals. Retailers are focused on when they can open next year, or maybe two years. So people really have to focus. It’s too early.

[chris08876]

Mets owners' development of Willets Point is delayed again


As “chop shop” owners refuse to leave the area, Wilpons’ development plan hits another snag.

As the Queens Chronicle reports, the long-planned redevelopment of Willets Point has been delayed once again, as a handful of business owners refuse to budge after defying the city’s June 1 deadline to leave the land. The business owners and Sunrise Cooperative, who had previously challenged the city with a lawsuit, have "vowed to go on a hunger strike" until the city aids their relocation to the Hunts Point area of The Bronx. While the proposed timeline for construction calls for a full demolition of the auto "chop shops" to be completed this year, the business owners’ unwillingness to vacate the area has delayed the first phase of the hotly contested redevelopment plan.

Aesthetics aside, this delay has major implications for the Mets. Willets Point, and its unsightly mess of tin-roofed auto-parts shops adjacent to Citi Field, has long been a site of contention and controversy between its business owners, the city, and the Wilpon family. The Wilpons and their development company Sterling Equities are partners in the $3 billion redevelopment plan for the land approved in 2013, making the Mets’ owners the biggest private stakeholders in the refashioning of the area. But the development, which first requires a cleanup of the reportedly polluted land and the full installation of a sewer system, cannot begin until all the area’s shops are vacated.

Such a snag in the plans for Willets Point prolongs a process The Wilpons have been engaged in for years. The Wilpons were essentially awarded the land by Mayor Bloomberg and the city in 2008, a huge boon which coincided with their and the Mets’ period of financial uncertainty in the aftermath of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Even as the Wilpons have refinanced debts, cut back spending on the Mets, and attempted to sell minority shares in the team, the Sterling Equities-led redevelopment of Willets Point has represented the possible key to solidifying the financial future of the Mets. For now, though, the Mets’ financial future, and that of a developed commercial area next to Citi Field are still fraught with uncertainty.

===============================
http://www.amazinavenue.com/2015/6/1...pons-chop-shop

[chris08876]

De Blasio’s Dilemma: Fight for a Mall Near Citi Field or Disavow It

It is an unlikely battleground. It is an even less likely corner of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.

If the blacktop were hot enough in the 31-acre, 6,640-space parking lot outside Citi Field, along Roosevelt Avenue, you might be able to grill a hamburger on it. But the tender young trees lining the pedestrian walkways would scarcely offer much shade for your picnic.

Because it is parkland, however, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled last week that it could not be taken as a development site for a one-million-square-foot shopping mall simply because the administration of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said it could.

The court’s decision brings a halt — at least temporarily — to what has seemed like the relentless commercial appropriation of public land in New York City, often under the rationale that private profit is the only way the people can have nice things.

It also puts Mayor Bill de Blasio in a tough spot.

Will Mr. de Blasio join the developers’ intended appeal and ally himself publicly with a Bloomberg administration initiative that has been deemed an illegal giveaway of parkland?

Or will he disavow the mall, even though supporters say it is financially critical to the overall rebirth of the Willets Point neighborhood, including the possible construction of 875 units of affordable housing?

For the time being, a four-judge panel of the Appellate Division ordered that no further steps be taken to develop the mall, called Willets West, planned for the Citi Field parking lot by the Mets’ co-owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul B. Katz; and by the Related Companies.

The site, part of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, was set aside in 1961 for Shea Stadium, the home of the Mets, who now play at Citi Field. The older ballpark was razed in 2009, but the site is still parkland.

“Construction of Willets West on city parkland without the authorization of the State Legislature violates the public trust doctrine,” Associate Justice Angela M. Mazzarelli of the Appellate Division wrote in a decision and order issued on July 2.

The doctrine effectively means that parkland in New York State cannot be alienated from public use by local governments without Albany’s consent.

The doctrine was one of the legal weapons used successfully by John R. Low-Beer, a lawyer for the City Club of New York, the scrappy reincarnation of a once-dormant civic group, and the other plaintiffs who sued to stop Willets West.

Last year, the developers and the city persuaded a State Supreme Court justice that the public trust doctrine was satisfied by a 1961 law that set aside part of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park for a stadium or “any purpose” benefiting the public.

The developers said this week that they planned to pursue the case at the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. They said they believed the Appellate Division “misinterpreted the statute” by “improperly narrowing the broad authority it conveyed.”

A mayoral spokesman said he was constrained by the litigation from commenting. A spokesman for the Law Department said the city was considering its options.

For decades, the city has been trying to reclaim the industrial quarter of Willets Point, to the east of Citi Field. (An article about the current state of the auto-related businesses there appeared on Monday on the Jalopnik blog.)

Willets West is part of a plan agreed to in 2012 by Mr. Bloomberg and a joint venture of Sterling Equities, headed by Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz; and Related, the developers of Hudson Yards in Manhattan.

Sterling and Related would build a mall with more than 200 stores, as well as restaurants and movie theaters, that is to open in 2018. They would also clean up the environmental damage in part of Willets Point, with a grant of up to $40 million from the city. The developers are not required to construct the 2,500 housing units planned in the 2020s, though they would have to pay $35 million to get out of the deal.

City officials, the developers and the lower court said the mall fit a provision of the 1961 law allowing use of the stadium site for “recreation, entertainment, amusement, education, enlightenment, cultural development or betterment, and improvement of trade and commerce.” No further legislative approval was needed, they argued.

But Justice Mazzarelli cited the next clause in the law — “including professional, amateur and scholastic sports and athletic events, theatrical, musical or other entertainment presentations” — as evidence that only stadium-related uses had been envisioned. She said the clause established “the clear intent of the Legislature to curtail the use of this portion of the park to a stadium.”

Further, she wrote, the uses permitted by the law “must be related to the financing of the construction and improvement of the stadium.”

“No reasonable reading” of the law, Justice Mazzarelli wrote, “allows for the conclusion that the Legislature in 1961 contemplated, much less gave permission for, a shopping mall.”

===============================
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/ny...=nyregion&_r=1

[Design-mind]

Wow snag after snag! Even when or if this goes through it will take years to do the environmental clean-up.

[chris08876]

Yeah environmental clean ups take ages. I'm in the remediation business (Geologist), and its so much bs. Not even the cleanup that takes a while, a lot of it is just litigation and bullcrap with the EPA and DEP. It wouldn't surprise me if this even has an iota of a chance of happening in the next 5 years. This is looking like one of those 2025 type projects.

[drumz0rz]

I think the ruling is fair. The land was and is state park land. Shea was built with public money. While I think letting Wilpon build Citi Field (mostly private money) on the land is definitely acceptable use, a mega mall, is not. I don't doubt the mall will eventually get built, but they should get state approval and possibly spend some money in doing so.