From the Queens Tribune:After a reassessment of construction costs sent the plan back to the drawing board, the City diverted its attention elsewhere.
“We lost our place in the City’s pipeline,” Meyer said, claiming Willets Point’s redevelopment jumped to the front-burner while Flushing Commons was temporarily shelved.
Along the way, promises were made. In a mythologized but documented exchange between the Economic Development Corp. and then-Councilman John Liu, mentions of a 2,000 spot, capped-rate parking lot were floated, along with a movie theater and book store, among other things.
Mythologized? It was in writing. Here is a copy of it.
After nearly four hours of presenting and public comments, Meyer left struggling to grapple with what he largely characterized was a misguided opposition based on distortions and unrealistic expectations regarding parking.
One of the foremost and vocal opponents of Flushing Commons continues to be the neighborhood’s Business Improvement District, headed by chair James Gerson. But Meyer, himself a BID member, believes its membership has been manipulated into opposing a project that will ultimately benefit them.
“I believe the chairman has manipulated the process and unfairly unrepresented what’s happening in the community,” he said.
Meyer claims to have made repeated attempts to present the parking aspect of the development before the BID, only to have Gerson allegedly create a scheduling hurdle.
“I really think it’s been an abuse of what the mandate of the BID is and the process. There’s been a manipulation of the process,” Meyer said. “There have been a lot of misstatements.”
In spite of the long journey and continued controversy, Meyer has nothing but high hopes.
“It’s really going to transform Flushing,” he said before adding “I know some people would rather have their parking.”
Nice one-sided argument there. Why not call Johnny Liu for his opinion? After all, he was the Trib's man of the year a few short months ago.
15 comments:
Transform Flushing? Please. My sincere hope is that they will knock down all the junkyards in Willet's Point and then run out of money. Then hopefully a new mayor will do what Robert Moses wanted to do with it long ago - turn it into an extension of Flushing Meadows Corona park.
As far as how to transform Flushing, reclaim the waterfront and clean the river. Build a small strip park along the waterfront and allow people to walk to and enjoy the river.
Developers will come of their own accord and Flushing will actually be transformed for the better.
Flushing Commons is just more corporate welfare at the expense of open spaces. If they really wanted to build a commons - let them plant grass in the lot. Anything else is a corporate land grab of public space.
The "Coalition For A Planned Flushing Inc." had presented a cohesive and sensible plan many years ago for the development of Flushing which included a waterfront promenade among many other amenities.
What happened to it?
Julia Harrison was term limited out and John liu stole the show with some abortive changes for the uglier.
Mabel Law, a sit on your ass go-fer, is now the executive director of the BID.
And was it Myra Baird Herce that handed over the copyrighted trademark commissioned by the Coalition (executed by top designers Chermeyoff and Geismar) to the BID?
Now it's being used everywhere.
Thanks for crediting the Coalition For A Planned Flushing you thieves!
Flushing has already been transformed into Floo-shing, an Oriental dump!
Or as Wellington Chen once described it in the press, "A crappy little Chinatown"!
It seems that everything the "little duke" touches turns to shit.
So how is Flushing Commons going to turn out if it's ever built on time (or ever at all)?
S-H-I-T!!!
H-m-m-m....that's why Wellington isn't showing his face as the man behind Flushing Commons.
He's letting his little "white boy" Michael Meyers do his dirty work for him.
This way Wellington can "save face" when the project fails to deliver on its promise "the transformation" of Flushing.
C-mon Chen...everybody knows you're two faced...so you can afford to lose one of them.
I smell crap...and it's not just the Flushing River!
Jeez, didn't the reporter ever hear that you're supposed to talk to both sides? It's covered the first day in the first "Intro to Journalism" course. What an asshole.
Listen, the whole point was never to build such a ridiculously over-sized project. It was to pursue Bloomberg's right-wing anti-public property agenda, stealing from the people (again, since eminent domain was used to steal the property from the black community in the first place). They want to sell the muni lot to a politically connected developer and it can sit there a few years. This administration wants to unload all city-held land that doesn't contain city hall & the muni offices. Public amenities are not, apparently, the business of the people's government.
The church sold out for way too little. They should have gotten at least half the block back for their people.
It's The Trib, did you expect fair reporting?
I can't wait for the day a low-flying MD80 comes swooping in on a foggy day and tears right through that place.
Didn't they violate the airspace requirements when they built it? I never saw them make any adjustments to the building.
oops, sorry, meant to post that in the other thread about the other piece of junk in floo-shing. my mistake.
Its hard to tell the crap without a score card!
Wooo, what a doozy. I'm pretty sure the bozos at the Trib are REALLY proud of this hunk of garbage. This "Orovic" character, is he on TDC's dime? Maybe someone can get the EDC's payroll and see if he's getting a kick back from Bloomturd and his minions. High time that useless rag of a paper get destroyed if you ask me. Pretty pictures though!
No...Orovic is just a typical dumb ass no-talent weekly news-rag "reporter".
That's how the Trib likes 'em.
He gets paid in blow jobs from Nussbaum's whores.
He gets paid in blow jobs from Nussbaum's whores.
No BIG thing!
Public hearing for Helen Marshall:
April 20
anyone know Time/location...?
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100406/REAL_ESTATE/100409934
Maybe Marshal can share an orange prison jump suit with Shulman.
Maybe Marshal can share an orange prison jump suit with Shulman.
No problem! Call me!
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