Registered User
has anyone been to any of the great baseball neighborhoods?
They develop rather quickly once the public gets behind the effort.
Wrigley had a bunch of crotchety homeowners on waveland for years until the city mobilized to rezone the area and allow developers to buy up the houses, rebuild and now they have a great 365 day a year place to meet and generate revenue for the city.
Cleveland too.. San Fran is a great example. San Diego too. Pittsburgh and even Philly .. yuck@!
Registered User
You mean I could get paid for this?? LMAO. who do i call?Originally Posted by IPO
Registered User
I stand corrected!It is actually closer to 80%. And THAT is the BUSINESS OWNERS estimate.
Agree it is best of all parties to move.
Atlantic Ave -- you mean you go to public meetings and you are not a paid shill??
Seriously, I think there are some good contributions here. I'll do everything to ignore IPO/Mongoose's baiting and keep this on topic as a way to talk about creating the next great baseball neighborhood.
My company and MYSELF pay $10,000 a year for family health insurance to help subsidize the cost of these people that don't pay ANYTHING for their health care.
Last edited by metfan61; 04-09-2009 at 12:56 PM.
Registered User
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?n...d=574903&rfi=6
Pols team up on Willets Pt.
04/09/2009
State Sen. Hiram Monserrate and Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (both D-East Elmhurst) blasted the city Sunday for issuing building code citations to several Willets Point landowners in recent weeks.
According to Monserrate, right, the raids shuttered 11 businesses in the gritty 62-acre area near just-opened Citi Field, which the city plans to transform into a mixed-use retail, hotel and affordable housing development.
At this week’s press conference, Monserrate implied that the timing of the raids, coming in the weeks leading up to the Mets’ home opener at Citi Field April 13, was far from accidental.
“The opening of a pristine new stadium next door does not give the city the right to engage in an agency-wide campaign to shut down Willets Point,” Monserrate said.
— Paul Leonard
Registered User
People-
we have a VERY SMALL Window here to mobilize and let the politicians know what we think about the new baseball neighborhood across from Citi Field.
Notwithstanding the myriad of additional benefits that I have outlined in previous posts WE need to be VOCAL in our support of something BETTER across from OUR Ball Park.
read up on the baseball neighborhoods across the country and how they have added economic impact to the their cities. With Flushing Meadow to the South and the vibrant multicultural neighborhoods to the east and west and the Water to the North we could have a wonderful 365 day a year shrine to our national pastime and vibrant community for ALL To enjoy.
Opening Day is next week. Lets get mobilized to use the power of the people to affect change that WE can believe in.
make it happen.. It is YOUR ball park. It is YOUR City.
Registered User
its working mets fans>>
now they are siding with indicted felon woman beaters.
Registered User
Folks....
FREDO AND HIS LOBBYIST LIKE BIGGIESMALLS have a VERY SMALL Window here to try and bully public opinion, perception and influence politicians who know that for generations no one cared one bit about hardworking people just living their lives legally just like everyone else working in NYC until we paid for Fredo's field of schemes which he built it on their doorstep.
For generations you went to baseball games, those people made their living just like you. All they want is to continue to do the same thing just like you want to attend your games.
Notwithstanding the myriad of additional benefits Biggie Smalls wants for Fredo Wilpon and Jeff-R-Us who build a lower capacity flawed cookie cutter as a shrine to Ebbets Field Dodgers and a rotunda who for a man who would absolutely be on the side of the Willets Points businesses after they ruthlessly replace our beloved Shea Stadum and bury any hint of Mets tradition for forty five years NYC needs to be VOCAL in telling Fredo Wilpon he's taken enough from NYC and our taxpayers and should not be permitted to trample lives in the name of him taking billions more because he wants a Brooklyn Dodger baseball neighborhood next.
No one anywhere has pulled this kind of shell game on it's citizens to tear their lives apart for a baseball game. Baseball already has a 365 day a year shrine to our National Pastime in Cooperstown New York. Fredo wants his Brooklyn Dodger neighborhood and if he had his way would trample generational businesses there long before him and Shea to get it.
Don't fall for some lobbyist who is here to help his boss peruse a Brooklyn Dodger landgrab stand by a community that has never done one thing to hurt the Mets and treated them as neighbors and family since the day Shea was constructed and deserve no less than to make the same living as you do.
Opening Day is next week. Tell Fredo he's taken enough from our taxpayers who pay for his ballpark with every school closed, with every business bought out on our dime and with countless billions more he wants the taxpayers to put out for all in the name of his wallet and making up for money he lost to Madoff.
It is our City, it's not Fredo's Brooklyn Dodger City.
Last edited by IPO; 04-09-2009 at 01:20 PM.
Put it in the books
I haven't really formed one yet, except that I think it would be cool to be able to see neighboring buildings from within the ballpark, from the Field Level and possibly from the field itself.
Besides, if my understanding of the situation is correct, by the time this is up and running and functional, a player who hasn't even been born yet will be enshrined in the Mets Hall of Fame, and many of us will not be around to enjoy whatever amenities the project will offer... so at this stage it's all academic to me.
Although, if the heading and subheading to this Daily News article by Juan Gonzales is any indication of the reality of the situation ("Willets Point land a shameful steal of a deal for Mets; City is on the way to paying $500 million for tract and gifts 23 acres to Wilpons and partners for retail, entertainment and hotel complex by Citi Field"), well, that's just not right.
X
Gerardo Parra, a lefthand batter, steps in to lead off. Harvey's first pitch on the way, it's a fastball on the inside corner for a called strike, nothing and one, a 93-mile per hour fastball to Gerardo Parra. Parra batting at .281 with 6 homers, 28 runs batted in. - Howie Rose's call of Matt Harvey's very first pitch in the big leagues... Mets at Arizona, July 26, 2012
Iron Hands
That article was written from the "common man" perspective of the News. From this perspective, it's just another example of the rich taking advantage of the poor. But what Gonzales fails to consider is that the land is essentially worthless in its current state. If the City wanted to sell it to recover its costs, they would first have to remediate the polluted ground at a cost of untold millions in order to make it commercially attractive to a developer to bid on. I believe that the developer is paying for the cleanup in this deal. Then Gonzales complains that its going to take until 2025 for the affordable housing to be built. Well, no housing would be built, ever, if a developer didn't take the risk of spending their money on the project. Putting housing there first, before the surrounding area is turned into someplace someone would actually want to live, makes no sense. And 2025 is better than never. Then Gonzales complains that part of the site will remain unremediated for years to come. Without a project funded by the private sector, 100% of the site would remain an open cesspool forever. Once the project gets underway, the City will recoup its investment by income and sales and property tax streams for year to come.
First Game- Twinight DH, Mets vs. Cards at Shea, August 22, 1965
Registered User
It would be like the mall of America, they would put the landmarks in the mall itself.
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.
Registered User
who's gonna want to live out there?
there's only 2 ways in and out.
won't be affordable, it'll be sold as a "premium" location - but it isn't.
what companies are expanding at the rate to fill the office space?
Companes are contracting their office space these days not expanding.
Retail outlets are closing locations.
this is a bad subsitute for the unrealistic development that king bloomie and his henchman doctoroff (who wanted to foist an unrealistic olympic bid on nyc) wanted for the west side.
should be a lot of fun getting into the mallpark while all this is being constructed, unless you pay extra for special access and entrances.
there's no sense to this, it's a revenue generator for sterling that'll suck up tax $$$'s and will be scaled back when they'll have to admit that there won't be the demand for this space.
Last edited by Paul W; 06-15-2012 at 01:49 PM.
the turd in the punchbowl
reality really sucks.
enjoy the game more...
Registered User
Hey, I remember this thread.
And, of course, Sterling is the developer. The shill probably knew it'd work out that way in advance.
You know, this whole thing was obvious from the beginning. Another out and out Wilpon heist. Even I never thought the City would blow a half billion dollars (or more) on the land and then just give it to Wilpon for free, though. I guess we're living in a day and age where nobody feels the need to have any shame.
I wonder if anybody still thinks giving Wilpon a free neighborhood and stadium will translate to higher Mets payrolls?
"The Fightin' Met With Two Heads" - Mike Tyson/Ray Knight!
Met Fan Since 1969
I don't know if this plan is perfect, but something definitely needs to be done. The whole area between Citi Field and College Pt. Blvd. is an eyesore, an ugly uninhabitable embarrassment to not just the Mets and New York but to all mankind. Just try walking from Citi to Main St. in Flushing, especially after it rains. Forget about it. Imagine an out-of-towner coming to a Met game and seeing that dilapidated area right by our ballpark. 10 years is too long. We need Robert Moses style action to clear that junk out of there and make something decent. Now.
Registered User
Some people might think Yonkers is an ugly, uninhabitable embarrassment to mankind.
Does that give some greedy monster the right to steal it from its rightful owners, and put up a mall instead?
"The Fightin' Met With Two Heads" - Mike Tyson/Ray Knight!
Moderate Moderator
I think anything that happens with that triangle should be acquired like any other real estate deal. With purchases. Granted, I'd like to see something come of it sooner rather than later, and I believe the city has allowed that area to be so dilapidated for way too long (as if Willets Point is immune from landowning codes) and should be condemned in one fell swoop, but I don't like the idea of simply stealing the land and handing it over to anyone free of charge.
Moses did a lot of good things for the greater NY region, but he did a lot of bad, too. The Cross-Bronx Expressway is always the first thing that comes to mind. And, of course, this country notoriously (and, imo, illegally and immorally) used eminent domain under the pretense of manifest destiny to claim control of the entire heart of the continent, while simply handing over land to anyone who wished to squat, not only without regard to the native inhabitants but also with an undue vengeance against them.
But this is the 21st Century, and civic groups have become a firm part of the lobbies. I think any land acquired should be purchased on the up and up with the owner's (seller's) approval (even if, as I say, I believe they should be required to clean up and maintain their properties).
Put it in the books.
Team Veteran
Jail Fredo, Jeff R US, and Saul Katz with Madoff, knock down the Brooklyn Dodger disaster in Shea's parking lot, bring Bloomberg before the City Council on charges demanding his immediate removal from office while the Willets Point business sue NYC for damages and neglect of their neighborhood.
No Brooklyn Dodger ballpark, No Brooklyn neighborhood.
Fredo and Jeff-R-Us pay for the immediately demolition of their mistake, Mets relocate or suspend operations while they pay for a new Shea Stadium while MLB runs the team and brings in a new ownership, they get the proceeds less demolition and construction of the new Shea.
Generational year round businesses on that property long before Shea are the only priority for Willets Point now and in the future.
No development now, no development ever.
Last edited by WEB; 06-16-2012 at 07:53 PM.
Team Veteran
Did you honestly think the convicted felon x2 in the Bronx was going to a 1.5 billion taxpayer gift (who knows what else?) for his neighborhood inside a ballpark to put the South Bronx out of business while the guy working with Madoff was going to settle for only 1/3 of that from the taxpayers? We knew in 2008.
He wanted his Brooklyn neighborhood outside the ballpark and an entire neighborhood leveled.
You could demolish and rebuild five or six ballparks for what this ponzi scheme will cost so I say make them pay to put everything back the way it was and then go away forever.
Of course now there is one big difference for those calling generational businesses illegal. Fredo Wilpon in the one who settled on Madoff which means his business is illegal.
Last edited by WEB; 06-16-2012 at 08:44 PM.
Registered User
What is the best part of digging up this OLD thread ???? Reading the legendary posts from BIGGIESMALLS......the all time greatest posts by anyone on baseball fever. Remember when he claimed people in the Iron Triangle were filling people's gas tanks with sugar to force them to park in Wilpons lots ! Classic stuff.
Mets/Brooklyn Dodgers fan
Possibly there may be a parallel between what's happening on this development and the events that have unfolded at the Meadowlands with the mall formerly known as Xanadu. It's been a nightmare and has caused at least one developer (the former Mills Corp.) to go under.
Team Veteran
Smells like Fredo called Bloomberg who called the Daily News editorial department or the News has a luxury box or two in that dump.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/d...sEnabled=false
New deal to rehab and redevelop Willets Point looks like a winner
Plan will put the Mets' Citi Field at the center of a whole new neighborhood
After Mayor Bloomberg set his sights on a major upgrade, the City Council signed off in 2008 on a plan to level the whole thing and invite bids from developers who would build 5,500 housing units, including 1,100 at affordable rents, shops, a school, a hotel and a convention center.
To enable construction, the city was to kick in $400 million to acquire the land piece by piece and invest in infrastructure. The purchases have gone forward, but the rest went off track when the economy went south.
DOESN'T THE DAILY NEWS MEAN FREDO'S ECONOMY WENT OFF A CLIFF WHEN HE GOT BLAMED WITH MADOFF?
JAIL THEM ALL.
On the Inside
So Wang signed a 25 year lease for the Islanders to play in Brooklyn. So much for the Wilpon's plan to build them an arena in Flushing. They're still going to try to build an MLS stadium though
Registered User
Read this amazing article. The pertinent parts are bolded. The astonishing part is in red:
Pollution mysteries await Willets Point cleanup
By Stephen Stirling
TimesLedger Newspapers
2/28/08
Though the public approval process is yet to begin on the redevelopment of Willets Point, the New York City Economic Development Corporation is making preparations to tackle a complex goulash of contamination that spans across the entire site and runs decades deep.
Conservative estimates from the EDC have put the cost of the remediation, expected to be one of the largest in city history, at more than $50 million with the process taking upward of three years to complete. EDC Vice President Kay Zias, who has been heading up the agency’s plans for the site’s remediation, said it was too early to pinpoint the cost and cleanup length because the city does not know the extent of the contamination that lies underneath the more than 250 businesses that occupy the land.
“Basically remediation depends on what exactly is found where,” Zias said.
The EDC has only been able to test the soil and groundwater on what is now public property, meaning on the streets and underneath both the streets and sidewalks that border the 60-acre swath of developable land in the small conglomeration of businesses.
Thus far, the EDC said it found evidence of petroleum and corrosive metal contamination in the soil and groundwater, which are probably byproducts of the auto-related and manufacturing businesses in the area.
High levels of petroleum and metal contamination in soil have been linked to significant health effects, such as certain kinds of cancer like leukemia. Such contaminants can also have disastrous effects on a local ecosystem, killing bacteria and other small organisms whose absence can have a ripple effect up the food chain.
Zias said the levels of contamination were not “epic,” but would likely be greater on the business sites themselves. The EDC said the lack of infrastructure in the area is expected to play a role in the level of contaminants found. Without sanitary sewers water can collect freely and spread contaminents across the site and many of the businesses have freestanding petroleum and sewage tanks, which can also pose a contamination threat if they leak.
“There is a tank associated with pretty much every tenant or privately held parcel here, and whether it be above ground or underground it’s still a possibility of contamination that has to be explored,” Zias said.
Zias said what will likely be the most complicated and pressing aspect of any remediation to take place will not be what is near the surface but what lies below. She said the site’s history as a filled-in wetland and earlier use as an ash and cinder dump in the early part of the century may mean that potentially combustible gases are lurking below.
“What’s also happening here is beneath everything are ashes and cinders and various fills in a swamp kind of context, which creates methane gases,” Zias said. “Which is a naturally occurring process, but it’s problematic if it travels into contained space like basements, where it can spontaneously combust.”
Zias said that if this is the case, development pursued on the site will almost certainly have to include plans for a ventilation system that allows the gases to disperse in a controlled manner. Such a system would probably include individual ventilation systems on buildings that go up in the area and interceptor trenches - dikes used to allow vapor to be channeled and dissipated - along the sides of streets and buildings.
The EDC has repeatedly said that the entire site will have to be cleaned up as a whole, which some have criticized as a ploy to force the removal of the existing businesses more quickly. Zias said, however, that it makes more practical sense to clean the site as a whole because there is less of a chance of encountering complications, such as flooding recontaminating cleaned portions of the site, down the road.
“There’s just sort of a functional problem there,” Zias said. “The costs there would increase significantly if you have to take that extra effort to do it this way. So it can be done. It’s just a lot more costly.”
Overall, Zias stressed that if the project is approved, the remediation is expected be lengthy and arduous. She said within every aspect of it there lies a myriad of details that have to be covered with a fine-tooth comb, such as where contaminated soil will go, what replaces it and how much regulatory oversight will be needed.
“Every bit of imported material has to be tested as well to make sure that it’s no worse if not significantly better than what’s there right now,” she said. “We have to be very confident in our source, just as we have to be confident in what we’re taking out.”
http://stephenstirling.wordpress.com...point-cleanup/
For years the EDC said it was supremely difficult to remediate all the toxins if they didn't clean the whole site. Now, since they couldn't get approval to confiscate all the land from its owners, they're only going to put a Love Canal style cap over only part of the site. Supposedly, remediating the partial site is much more expensive than remediating the whole site. I don't believe any additional money has been budgeted to remediate the land since the project was changed to include only the partial site.
How much confidence do you have the area will be safely habitable by humans?
Why should any of the players care, though? I'm sure Sterling and their partner are setting up a bankruptcy-proof series of corporations to handle this project. None of the decision makers in government will be personally liable. By the time health problems start showing up and people start suing it might be decades. In the meantime billions of government dollars will be flowing into a lot of pockets.
Forget wins and losses. The Wilpons are awful people by every possible standard.
"The Fightin' Met With Two Heads" - Mike Tyson/Ray Knight!
I don't know what to say about the above. I think we've seen that article or some permutation thereof before. At first I thought you were nuts because and EDC was looking to cleanup methane, etc. linked to cancer and it appeared you were inferring it was a Wilpon related scheme. However, my reading compression is not what it was and when I looked back I saw EDC was not "environmental" something or other but NYC Economic Development Corporation. Is there any current info on this or did this just fall by the wayside because it is a 2008 article.
Registered User
The EDC is charged with making projects like this happen.
I just did a search and came up with another incredible article. Looks like they're going to build a sort of Maginot Line for the toxins. This article also explains that the Wilpons had to include development on the Eastern parking lots to make the whole project work. A special law was passed mandating that anything built there is legal, as long as it benefits the "Mets". This guaranteed that Sterling would have to get the deal to develop all the land.
In a strict sense, though, this development isn't going to benefit the Mets - only the Wilpons.
This is probably also why wagons were circled around Fred and Mario Cuomo was obtained to mediate with Picard. A lot of money would have been at risk if Fred had to sell and someone not committed to this project suddenly bought the Mets.
http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2...2_08_16_q.html
Willets West crucial to Iron Triangle plan
The group selected by the city to build a $3 billion, mixed-use neighborhood at Willets Point has revealed ambitious plans for the new neighborhood, but their vision would not have been possible without a separate proposed retail center on a parking lot to the west of Citi Field.
In June, the city ended a bidding process to develop a portion of the Iron Triangle when it selected a plan proposed by the Manhattan real estate firm Related Cos. and the real estate arm of the New York Mets, Sterling Equities.
In the partnership’s proposal, 23 acres of Willets Point immediately to the east of the Amazin’s’ ballpark, currently home to a buzzing network of auto body shops and industrial businesses, would be developed and the soil beneath cleaned of toxic contamination, representatives from both entities said in a recent meeting at the TimesLedger Newspapers’ offices.
But the entire project hinged on what is known as Willets West, a million-square-foot entertainment and retail development slated for the western parking lot near Citi Field that would not only provide economic benefits to the developers, but would also help transform the area into a desirable place to live.
If the project comes to fruition — it currently faces opposition from a group of Willets Point property owners who fear the city’s possible use of eminent domain to seize their land — it would mark the end of a decades-long struggle to transform the area.
“What has been probably the biggest element here, the biggest hindrance to redevelopment, is the condition of the property,” said Ethan Goodman, the project manager and a lawyer with Wachtel, Masyr & Missry.
In order to build on the 23 acres, the toxic soil beneath needs to be removed and properly disposed of. And when that happens, an underground barrier will be put in place, like a subterranean wall running around the perimeter of the site, in order to prevent any toxins from migrating from the surrounding contaminated soil into the clean soil.
Replacing the soil, slated to be completed in 2015, is the first in what the team referred to as a five-step transformation.
By 2016, the developers hope to have completed a series of low-scale retail and restaurant locations along 126th Street across from Citi Field, along with a 200-room hotel, which comprises the second step.
The third step is building Willets West. It will be composed of about 200 smaller stores along with one or two large anchor tenants, according to Goodman.
But because it is on park land, the development becomes a legal issue.
A law stipulates that anything built on the property is legal as long as it benefits the Mets, meaning no other development firm could have proposed to build on the land aside from Sterling. The partnership contends the law allows the movie theaters, restaurants and other entertainment venues they would like to build.
But opponents say the development is not only an egregious misuse of parkland but also illegal. The law would only permit something like a souvenir shop, for example.
Either way, Jesse Masyr, an attorney also from Wachtel, Masyr & Missry, said including a retail engine like Willets West was the only way to make the entire project economically feasible, a way of hedging the partners’ bets when they have to also put in housing, a much more risky investment that is required as part of the bidding process.
“It was fundamental to our thinking,” he said. “We need to create a critical mass, an economic development engine.”
Willets West would also make the area a more desirable place to live, he said.
Glenn Goldstein, president of Related Retail, said the tepid housing market that has affected other developments in Queens proved to his team that an economic center was needed in order to fulfill what the city wanted to see at Willets Point.
“It just reaffirms our thoughts that the market now isn’t there and we needed to create a place where people want to live,” he said.
The fourth step in the plan calls for the construction of additional exit ramps off the Van Wyck Expressway, built on the city’s dime, in 2021, which will pave the way for the final portion of the project, the construction of market-rate and affordable housing set to begin in 2024 and end in approximately 2028.
“We would envision that it wouldn’t all be built at once,” Goodman said. “It would probably be an organic, block-by-block devilment.”
Amid grousing from city lawmakers about the delay of the housing, Masyr contended delaying the housing is essential to responsibly developing the area.
“To put some amount of housing in Willets now we think would be inappropriate,” he said. “There is no community there, there is no service there, we think development needs to occur organically and doesn’t get dropped from a helicopter.”
So it seems the only way Fred can get his development is if housing is part of the package. Anyone really believe that underground wall will work? The ground water's polluted, too. In essence people will be exposed to these toxins so Fred, Saul and the Fetus can make even more money. Wow!
Meanwhile across the street at Chiti Field... My guess is they'll finally start putting money into the team when this project is ready to roll. No sense spending on players until they're ready to drive consumer traffic in the area. We're going to have a lousy team until then. They're probably hoping fans will have short memories and pretend the current era in Mets history never happened.
Last edited by Mongoose; 10-25-2012 at 09:25 AM.
"The Fightin' Met With Two Heads" - Mike Tyson/Ray Knight!
Thanks for taking the time. Odd that it was the Times ledger which IIRC is an Albany paper. I din't see mention of how much was bid or who will do the clean-up. Be that as it may, just when I think they can't possibly be so craven ...
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks