When the Fleet Financial Group purchased the DiBlasi Ford Dealership in Corona for $17 million in December 2013, it announced it would build the borough’s first convention center. The $200 million project called for a 106,000-square-foot-complex that would “rival the Javits Center” and include a 25-story hotel, residential apartments and plenty of retail space.
Fleet Financial Group has modified its plans considerably. Instead of the LaGuardia Convention Center, the company will build The Eastern Emerald Hotel at 112-21 Northern Blvd. across the Grand Central Parkway from Citi Field.
“The reason we scaled down is because we are trying to take more consideration about the existing traffic conditions in the area,” Fleet Financial Group President Richard Xia said. “It’s no longer a convention center, but a conference hotel that will still take advantage of the proximity to LaGuardia Airport and all the highways in the area.”
Xia could not go into any great detail on the specifics of The Eastern Emerald Hotel because “the project is still in its early design phase” and he did not have a timeline. “Right now we’re doing an environmental cleanup, contaminated soil remediation, and then we’ll go forward with the land use process.”
A conference hotel would serve the Asian business community in Flushing, but Xia has his eyes on an annual event that brings nearly a million visitors to the area each year.
“The US Open is huge and you have all these corporate sponsors who have no place large enough to suit their clients,” he said.
Xia is also counting on other business from the $3 billion mega-mall and housing complex that is planned for Willets Point.
9 comments:
A lot of BS. The city knew all along that it was going to be a hotel/shelter.
Future homeless shelter! What a wasteland!
And of course the city has or will conduct surveys that WILL determine this would have NO ADVERSE EFFECT ON VEHICULAR TRAFFIC IN THE AREA.....Picture if you will an event going on and traffic coming off the GCP onto Northern Blvd.
That is a real laugh....a Chinese concerned about traffic, when they live nose to ass back in Chins.
Who would attend a convention in that pest-hole known as Corona? Winos? Druggies? Illegals?
Who would attend a convention in that pest-hole known as Corona? Winos? Druggies? Illegals?
naw, politicians.
It wouldn't even be close to the subway. Were they going for another Javits Center?
With years of of gasoline,various oils and anti-freeze soaking into the ground,how can anything be built there. I'd like to see core samples taken from the area and sent to private lab.
THIS IS WHAT DEVELOPERS WANTED ALL ALONG. NO ONE IN CORONA BELIEVES THAT A CONVENTION CENTER MADE SENSE. IT WAS JUST SOMETHING TO ENTICE LOCAL RESIDENTS INTO THINKING THAT THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT WAS GOING TO CHANGE THE CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND CREATE HUNDREDS OF JOBS. BULLSHIT !!
THERE IS A MARRIOTT HOTEL JUST 2 BLOCKS AWAY ON NORTHERN BLVD. IT'S IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE. WHAT SHOULD BE BUILT INSTEAD OF ANOTHER HOTEL WAS ANOTHER SCHOOL, MAYBE AFFORDABLE ENIOR HOUSING SINCE THERE IS SO MUCH ELDERLY IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD.
THIS CITY IS RULED BY WALL STREET AND GREEDY DEVELOPERS !!
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