NEW YORK | Willets Point Development (Flushing)
http://www.nycedc.com/NR/rdonlyres/D...agramLarge.gif
With the Willets Point project, the City seeks to establish an urban renewal area that would improve environmental conditions in the Willets Point area. The mixed-use plan will create a new regional destination that includes new housing options, many new local jobs and an overall improvement in the quality of life for area residents. Willets Point Neighborhood The Willets Point Development District (the “District”) is located in the heart of northern Queens, adjacent to Shea Stadium, the USTA National Tennis Center, and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The District is located at the intersection of several major arterial highways. It is easily accessible to the entire New York City metropolitan area via the Long Island Rail Road and the No. 7 subway line, and is located in close proximity to both LaGuardia and JFK International Airports. Plan for Urban Renewal The City seeks to initiate a rezoning and establish an urban renewal area that creates a comprehensive land use, infrastructure, and development plan for the District. Willets Point would serve as a world-class example of superior urban design and development. The plan's ultimate goals include: * Improving environmental conditions in Willets Point * Providing new affordable and market rate housing * Promoting economic growth and job creation through additional private investment * Creating a new regional destination * Improving the quality of life for area residents Redevelopment of the District is representative of the City’s long-term planning and sustainability goals. It would not only eliminate degradation of the natural environment, but also promote green building and sustainable design practices. More Information About Willets Point To view the Downtown Flushing Development Framework, please visit www.downtownflushing.com. As the project enters the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure and environmental review in 2007, NYCEDC will continue to work with partner City agencies in connection with the project design and construction. You can also view the recently released Environmental Assessment Statement (PDF 847 KB) and Draft Scope of Work for the Environmental Impact Statement (PDF 1.3 MB) to learn more about the Willets Point project. |
Aerial photos from AntiNimby
AntiNimby posted these aerial photos in the CitiField thread:
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/4...pointneqg1.jpg http://img484.imageshack.us/img484/4...pointnwuk4.jpg http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/3...pointswuy1.jpg |
Here's a ground level shot:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/194/4...d99774.jpg?v=0 |
Courtesy of NYguy:
Quote:
|
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?n...d=574902&rfi=6
More Details Disclosed Of Willets Point Overhaul http://images.zwire.com/local/Z/Zwir...27370_T638.jpg This artist’s rendering shows how Willets Point could look when redeveloped. by Liz Rhoades, Managing Editor 05/03/2007 Promising a school, affordable housing and plenty of green space, Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday unveiled plans for the Willets Point redevelopment project at the Queens Museum of Art. The 60-acre site — also known as the Iron Triangle — has been eyed for years as a prime area for renewal. Long considered an eyesore, it is situated across the street from Shea Stadium and across the Flushing River from downtown Flushing. The roads are unpaved and there are no sewers. It is occupied primarily by car junkyards and repair garages. “It is one of the bleakest parts of the borough, but has the most promise,” the mayor said. “It will be the next great neighborhood.” Promising environmentally sensitive building technology, he said Willets Point would be a model for sustainable development. But first, the contaminated land must be cleaned up, which will only be undertaken once all businesses and establishments there have left. The city is currently considering seven proposals by developers, but will not select the winner until after the formal land use review is concluded, probably in the summer or fall of 2008. An environmental review began on Tuesday. The mayor’s plan calls for 5,500 residential units affordable to a variety of income levels; a 650-seat school; eight acres of open space; 11,000 parking spaces and room for office space and retail. A convention center, geared for mid-size trade shows, would be the only one in the city outside Manhattan. Bloomberg emphasized that it is critical for the city to relocate the 250 businesses located in Willets Point. To that end, the city is setting up a business relocation and workforce assistance plan this summer that will help find new locations and assist workers, many of whom are illegal immigrants. According to the city’s Economic Development Corp., Willets Point has 1,300 workers, with 400 of them undocumented. The city will provide job training and placement service, legal immigration services, English as a Second Language and General Educational Development test preparation for them. The redevelopment plan is meeting with resistance from Willets Point business owners, who say they want to remain. Daniel Sambucci attended the mayor’s announcement and said afterward that he’s had an auto salvage business for 50 years. “I want to stay, but it looks like it’s impossible,” he said. “Where are they going to move us in Queens?” Those sentiments were echoed later during an environmental review of the project held at the Flushing Library. Workers picketed outside the building, saying they don’t want eminent domain. The mayor, however, said in his speech he does not want to use eminent domain, which is the seizing of property for public use without the owner’s consent. “Willets Point is a blight,” he said. “We have to move ahead and not stay in the Stone Age. We are cognizant of their (businesses’) rights, but we have to build for the future and we will do that.” It is expected that the environmental cleanup at Willets Point could begin in 2010 and construction completed in 2017. |
Quote:
God, just the thought of those junkyards remaining another day is sickening. Btw, those greedy business owners who are protesting are just trying to shake down the city for as much money as they possibly can before they move. Simple greed on the part of these junkyard owners that's all. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
The Willets Point location has historical significance on several levels:
The town of Flushing was first settled in 1645 under charter of the Dutch West India Company.... By the 1850s, a second crossing, Strong's Causeway was built near the present-day Long Island Expressway, extending Corona Avenue towards Flushing. This crossing was located near the confluence of Horse Brook and the Flushing River. In the mid-19th Century, the growing city of Brooklyn gave the land around the river to the Brooklyn Ash Removal Company, which turned the salt marshes into landfill. The pollution was chronicled by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, where Jay Gatsby observed the "valley of ashes" on his train ride between Manhattan and Long Island. In 1936, Robert Moses proposed closing the ash landfill and transforming it into a park through its use as a World Fair site. With the exception of the Willets Point triangle, the landfill was leveled, the riverbed was straightened, and the southern part of the river was deepened to form the Meadow and Willow lakes. -- Wikipedia In the Great Gatsby: CHAPTER II The opening description of the valley of ashes, watched over by the brooding eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, has been analyzed again and again. Fitzgerald's friend and editor, Maxwell Perkins, wrote to Scott on November 20, 1924: "In the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg various readers will see different significances; but their presence gives a superb touch to the whole thing: great unblinking eyes, expressionless, looking down upon the human scene. It's magnificent." Later in the same letter Perkins concludes, "...with the help of T. J. Eckleburg... you have imported a sort of sense of eternity." |
Some more interesting history:
The history of the area around Willets Point is a political tale that holds its own among Gotham's best stories. It is charged with politics, corruption, power-brokers and a David versus Goliath moral – and, some say the turning point in Robert Moses's career.From http://www.waterwire.net/World/Neigh...fm?ContID=1739 http://64nywf65.20m.com/1976aerial.JPG |
|
Quote:
Commisar Bloomber has no right to wipe out small businessmen to build more luxury housing and hotels. Bloomberg only thinks in terms of big business and not in terms of the small entrepreneur. These businesses are breaking no law, they pay taxes, employ people and service customers. These small businesses will be replaced with corporate brand hotels where the only long term employment consists of maids and janitors. The low pay service sector servicing corporate execs is the only vision for New York that Bloomberg has. As if the City has not wasted enough tax dollars in financing the construction of a Mets Stadium, more tax dollars are going to use eminent domain to replace existing legitimate businesses and finance the new construction. And please stop blaming the small businessmen for the lack of roads and sewers. It it is the responsibility of the City to build infrastructure not small businesses. This is a corporate welfare boondoggle plain and simple. |
Quote:
Quote:
The businesses may be small but these chop shop owners are not poor. If they are like any of the many car repair shops, they probably rip customers off. Many live in the posh suburbs while using valuable city land to conduct their dirty trade. Quote:
The new businesses will also employ people (more, too) and service customers, all without damaging the environment. Quote:
The only people making a good living right now are the crooked shop owners that 1) hire illegals (at obviously low wages and health insurance? Ha!) 2) cheat their customers 3) create a health hazard to both workers and Queens residents alike The new development will bring retail, meaning there will be small business owners, more jobs than what is there now, generate revenue many times more for the local economy than the current business could ever dream of and finally reclaim a piece of the city that has largely been nothing but a wasteland. Quote:
The City is also not financing any part of the construction at Willets Point. In fact, the City is not doing any construction themselves, never had. Quote:
This will finally turn a piece of disgusting land that is harmful to people working there and the people in the surrounding area into a livable neighborhood and join the rest of city in the 21st century. The affordable housing is desperately needed, the retail shops will attract many stadium goers before and after a Mets game. The convention center will bring in shows that would other bypass the city altogether and bring visitors who will drop their dollars in the shops and hotels. Boondoggle? Only in your fuzzy dreams. |
this move isn't made to help big business, its to help small hometown business. no big box stores are to go in the retail, its supposed to be small owned stores to support the new local residences, and then a bunch of restaurants and bars for the run off for the stadium
My biggest problem with this idea is the location of everything. You have this new neighborhood on the east side of the stadium, the subway entrance on the south and the main parking lot on the west. So when people are leaving the stadium the odds are they are going to go south and west and ignore this new neighborhood that will be counting on the run off from game days. this is a serious issue. My suggestion is to move the main stadium parking to where the convention center is to behind it forcing the drivers to go through this district and have a drink, some food and so on. And then on the spot of the main parking lot for the stadium, put the convention center. |
Is Flushing populous and dense enough to support a light-rail line through downtown Flushing then across the river to Willets Point? The right collection of restaurants and taverns could be quite an enticement, even if it requires a left-turn for the South-heading LIRR and no.7 transit riders. A light-rail line could bind this new neighborhood to the ever-growing Flushing downtown and diminish the effects of the river (a water barrier).
Also, could light-rail ever be considered for the park itself, to wed together Citi-Field, the National Tennis Center, the Queens Museum, etc.? New York is a difficult environment for light-rail because the streets are so congested. It's not Portland which has utilized both light rail and streetcar trams to maximize public transit in their city core. Does the Northern Blvd corridor offer any possibilities? Even to nearby Nassau County? Just thinking. Eastern Queens will never see subway extensions. What are the transit options? |
Quote:
Its possible. Sadly New York development is so byzantine that it is likely to go to one mega developer which will lead monotonous developments. |
Aerial shots of Iron Triangle and Shea Stadium
KCGridlock (Bill Cobb) has posted two fantastic threads under My City Photos. The two shots below are taken from his thread: Above New York City (Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey, Staten Island series)
In the first photo, CitiField construction and Shea Stadium are in the foreground; the Iron Triangle is behind in the middle ground; and across the river at the top of the shot is downtown Flushing: http://urban-photos.com/webgraphics/nyc_9821.jpg Somewhat larger context with the National Tennis Center in foreground: http://urban-photos.com/webgraphics/nyc_9790.jpg |
Quote:
|
^ I agree completely. I think one of the planned developments include wetlands restoration and public walkways on both sides of the Flushing River. Once this area becomes walkable, it's a natural extension to connect this more cohesively with downtown Flushing. I could almost laugh. Who could have figured that Shea Stadium surrounded by parking lots could be transformed into an urban ballpark just a long walk from bars, restaurants, retail and residences? This could prove to be a remarkable transformation of a toxic brownfield disaster.
|
Willets Point rehab tab put at $3B-plus
BY FRANK LOMBARDI DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Thursday, June 14th 2007, 4:00 AM The envisioned transformation of Willets Point from a scruffy haven for scrap yards and auto shops into a residential, retail and convention mega-development will cost "north of $3 billion," a city official said yesterday. The estimate was given by Robert Lieber, president of the city's Economic Development Corp., which is gearing up to submit the Willets Point development plan to the governmental approval procedure known as ULURP - uniform land use review process. "It will be a lot," Lieber said when asked about the costs during the City Council's first public hearing on the mammoth redevelopment plan announced May 1 by Mayor Bloomberg. That drew laughs from a dozen Council members who participated in the hearing by the Council's Economic Development and Land Use committees and scores of spectators, most of them representing Willets Point's landowners, businesses, workers and Queens civic officials, including Borough President Helen Marshall and her predecessor, Claire Shulman. Lieber added, "This is a big project, you know, you've got 60 acres of land to develop, with very large density of what we're going to do, but you know it's not unrealistic to think that this would be a project that is north of $3 billion ... in excess of $3 billion." "That's a lot of money," said Councilman Thomas White (D-Queens), who put the cost question to Lieber as chairman of the Economic Development Committee. Councilwoman Melinda Katz (D-Queens), who heads the Land Use Committee, asked Lieber who will be paying the costs, including extensive expenditures for site preparation and sewers, roads and other infrastructure. Lieber said the developer, or team of developers, that will bid to build the Willets Point of the future will "bear the bulk of the costs for this." "It's very early on in the process," Lieber added. "I don't think we've come up with a specific budget yet or figured out what the costs are - what the city is going to pay." He ventured a "guesstimate" the public costs might be in the $100 million-to-$200 million range. Lieber also fielded questions on the possible use of eminent domain if negotiated deals aren't reached with the property owners and businesses within the 62-acre tract. He stressed that the city's goal is to reach deals with all those involved. "We will do everything we can do to accommodate the needs of these businesses," he testified. "But as the mayor said [at his announcement] on May 1, he's not going to let one person be the holdout for the good that's associated with so many other people." flombardi@nydailynews.com |
All times are GMT. The time now is 12:50 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.