A New York community advisory committee has advanced a proposed Citi Field casino to a final round, as the Metropolitan Park project pushed by the New York Mets is still alive to potentially land a downstate casino license.
The committee has already rejected four proposals for Brooklyn and Manhattan licenses, including a Coney Island bid and a projected Times Square casino that failed to land any support from local businesses or the Broadway community. That leaves four proposals angling for three downstate casino licenses to be awarded by the Gaming Facilities Location Board before the end of the years. (Sporting facilities also play a role in the proposal from Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, which would expand the facility’s existing gambling to a full casino. Other proposals come from Yonkers and the Bronx.)
Proposed in conjunction with Hard Rock International, Metropolitan Park would include a new gaming facility, hotel, food hall and a live music venue in acres of parking currently underused at Citi Field. When combined with the NYC FC MLS soccer stadium and residential development under construction in the area, Metropolitan Park will be part of the transformation of one of the most desirable open areas in all of New York City.
The specifics of the plan include:
- An investment of $8 billion
- Nearly 15,000 permanent and construction jobs
- 20 acres of new park space and 5 acres of community athletic fields and playgrounds
- Climate-ready infrastructure including solar, green roofs, and flood mitigation
- Entertainment complex with a Hard Rock hotel, live music venue, and gaming
- New connections to the waterfront, park, and surrounding community
- Queens food hall
- Accessible and renovated mass transit station
- Improved and modernized road network, bike paths, and parking infrastructure
With the Citi Field casino plan still alive, the area featuring the home of the New York Mets is poised for dramatic change—yet again. Early baseball history made at nearby Fashion Race Course in Corona, which opened in 1858: the first enclosed ballpark, the first admission charge for a pro baseball game, the first All-Star Game in baseball. The current Citi Field site along Flushing Creek was used as a dumping ground for coal ash and other refuse, forever memorized in The Great Gatsby as “a valley of ashes.” Flushing Meadows was then targeted for cleanup by NYC parks czar Robert Moses, and the Citi Field site was used as parking for 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair and then as home of Shea Stadium for the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. Citi Field replaced Shea Stadium in 2009 as home of the Mets.
Renderings courtesy Metropolitan Park.
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