BP candidates suddenly opposed to Mets mall, soccer stadium

From the Daily News:

Major League Soccer — which was in talks with the city to build a $340 million stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, — won’t be coming to Queens, said a local politician.

“The location doesn’t work,” said City Councilman and Queens Borough President candidate Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans), who chairs the Council’s Land Use Committee. “There was no real benefit for Queens residents to site it in that location.”

Comrie, who said he opposes putting the stadium in the park, pointed out there is land available near Yankee Stadium.

Team officials said they are considering various sites all over the city — and Queens is not off the table just yet.

From the Daily News:

Two City Councilmen — who happen to both be running for Queens borough president — are trying to block the plate against a proposed mega-mall next to CitiField.

The lawmakers, Leroy Comrie and Peter Vallone Jr., announced Monday they oppose the current plan, which includes a 1.4-million-square-foot mall and is currently rounding third and headed for home in the city’s land-use review process.

“The community has responded negatively,” Comrie said. “They don’t feel their needs are being kept in the forefront.”

Comrie heads the powerful Council Land Use committee, and said changes may be needed before it gets the Council’s rubber stamp.

The lawmakers will vote on the mall and adjustments to the $3 billion development this fall.

Comrie (D-St. Albans) blasted a “ridiculous” provision that hinges the construction of the affordable housing to connecting ramps to the Van Wyck Expwy.

He said there are “ongoing negotiations.”

Meanwhile, Vallone said the new plan stretches outside of the boundaries of what was originally pitched in 2008.

“That’s not what we approved,” said Vallone (D-Astoria). “You can’t change it after we approve it.”

“It’s an urban renewal plan.” said Katz. “It’s so easy to talk about amending. We have to look at how to make it happen and move it forward.”

Ah, well Katz's reaction is not surprising. Neither is Comrie's. I'm sure this will sail through Comrie's Land Use Committee as soon as some adjustments are made to the plan.

But what happened to Peter Vallone's "it's not parkland" nonsense? He used to be all for this project before he was against it.

In the meantime, Tony Avella has proposed statewide legislation that would likely prevent the alienation of parkland in the future. Michael Simanowitz has agreed to introduce it in the Assembly. Let's see what the Albany tweeders do with it.

Weiner wants development in parks

From the Queens Courier:

Among major issues affecting Queens, Weiner also discussed developments including a possible new soccer stadium, Willets Point and the expansion of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

Weiner said his default position is the belief “we should be developing and that we should try to create jobs and that we should try to create economic activity places outside of Manhattan.”

He said he was previously conflicted about expanding the tennis center, even voting against the move when he was on the City Council. But Weiner said generally speaking, he is in favor of the three projects and wants to see them move forward. He added he wants to leave himself some wiggle room on details of the soccer stadium.

MLS Stadium in FMCP is apparently DOA

From the Times Ledger:

The odds that a soccer team funded by an Abu Dhabi sheik and the New York Yankees will scrap plans for a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park are more likely than official announcements have indicated, TimesLedger Newspapers has learned.

Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber announced Tuesday Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the owner of a British team called Manchester City Football Club, and the Bronx Bombers, which have signed on as minority partners, will head the league’s newest franchise.

The team, called New York City Football Club, plans to begin its first season in 2015 at a temporary venue the team said has not been decided, but which documents seen by TimesLedger identify as Yankee Stadium.

MLS has spent more than a year and nearly $2 million on lobbyists to lay the groundwork for a 13-acre stadium proposed on top of a non-working fountain in the park, which was touted by the Bloomberg administration but met with vehement opposition by Queens parks groups.

In order to fend off continuing criticism directed at the team’s majority owner from Abu Dhabi’s royal family, the New York City Football Club has already planned to abandon the idea, documents suggest.

The club plans to draw focus away from the turmoil in Queens by backing off the park complex and instead pushing news about players and highlighting the upcoming 2015 season, according to documents, which is a year earlier than MLS had originally anticipated play would begin.

The decision seems to have come as a surprise to both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and MLS.

As recently as May 13, Bloomberg defended the Flushing Meadows stadium plan, telling reporters at a news conference replacement parkland would be found for the proposed 25,000-seat stadium.

And in late April, MLS Commissioner Don Garber was still insisting the Queens stadium was the only option.

“If we get this done, it will be in Flushing Meadows Park,” Garber told the Associated Press at the time. “There is no Plan B.”

But the MLS commissioner was informed sometime after making the comment that the new team, which is now taking the lead on the stadium search, would consider other locations.

“MLS is no longer leading the effort with the stadium project,” Garber said this week, adding the league has also dropped its pursuit of a land-use application to site the stadium in the park, he said.

New York City Football Club knew its decision would anger the city administration, since the mayor and a team of high-ranking city officials poured significant resources into the park stadium plan, considered by many to be a Bloomberg legacy project, TimesLedger has learned.

According to the documents, the club plans to thank and reach out to community groups in Queens and may offer to refurbish soccer fields in the Flushing Meadows near the proposed stadium site even thought he stadium may never be built.

From the Queens Chronicle:

As officials from MLS, the Bronx Bombers, Abu Dhabi-owned Man City and Mayor Bloomberg congratulated each other during a Tuesday press conference rolling out the franchise, there was one notable absence: the Unisphere, which had become ubiquitous in the league’s push to build a home in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Sources say the league and club owners plan to slowly suffocate talk of a Flushing Meadows stadium through a series of distractions meant to push the mythical arena to the sports pages. There it will likely die a quiet death, where MLS hopes the Bloomberg administration will be spared the embarrassment of yet another ambitious failure. The process has already begun.

According to sources who requested anonymity to maintain ties to the project, FMCP’s precipitous drop from essential to optional is fueled by a mixture of feasibility issues, unexpectedly strong opposition and face-saving on the part of all involved. The Pool of Industry site, it turns out, is fraught with regulatory and practical headaches, and the public needs its attention drawn away from a billionaire owner from Abu Dhabi.

The stadium, however, reportedly carried the extra weight of being labeled a “legacy project” by the Bloomberg administration. Ditching the location in FMCP would invoke the mayor’s ire, but was a necessary repercussion.

Sources said Bloomberg has expended significant political capital in trying to make MLS’s expansion franchise a reality. The potential scuttling of the FMCP stadium would add to the mayor’s list of failed proposals, alongside the failed West Side Stadium, part of the infamously flawed push to host the Olympics in 2012.

The political capital is paired with nearly $2 million in literal capital MLS spent lobbying for the stadium.

Yankees join forces with sheik to buy soccer team

From the Times Ledger:

Major League Soccer announced Tuesday the New York Yankees have teamed up with an Abu Dhabi sheik to buy a new soccer team franchise based in the Big Apple, but the announcement cast doubt on whether the crew will eventually play in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

The Bronx Bombers and Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who already owns English soccer team Manchester City, hope the new team, New York City Football Club, will begin play in 2015, according to an announcement from the brand new club, which will compete with another team across the Hudson River.

Manchester City will be the majority owner of the club, with the Yankees acting as an investor, according to the club. On May 25, Manchester City will play a friendly match against another British team, Chelsea FC, at Yankee stadium.

Where the new team will play afterward is up in the air.

Last month, Garber reiterated the league’s insistence on Flushing Meadows.

“If we get this done, it will be in Flushing Meadow Park,” Garber said to the Associated Press. “There is no Plan B.”

But statements by the New York City Football Club in its Tuesday announcement seemed to open the possibility the sports facility could be located elsewhere.

“In considering any stadium site, we will listen first. This is what we have always done in Manchester and what we will do in New York. Only in this way can the club truly represent the city whose name it will carry,” said Ferran Soriano, chief executive officer of Manchester City.

The announcement also mentioned the negotiations, public relations pitches and outreach that MLS has been undertaking.

“New York City FC is committed to seeking a new permanent stadium in New York. Until that time, the new team is arranging to play in an interim home beginning in its inaugural MLS season in 2015. Over the past year, MLS began discussions with the city of New York and other stakeholders about the possibility of constructing a new stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. The club’s new management will continue these discussions with local government officials, community residents and businesses, soccer leagues, and MLS,” the announcement stated. “The club will continue to review other potential sites as well.”

The possibility of another location was welcome news to Queens park advocacy groups.

“As everyone in Queens — except for most of our elected officials — seems to know, the proposed site was a terrible location for any sort of stadium, as it would have horribly impacted the park as well as sat directly on top of the Flushing River, which the Fountain of the Planets currently is sited,” said Paul Graziano, a co-founder of the park advocacy group Save Flushing Meadows Corona Park, which is opposed to commercial development in the green space. “As advocates specifically for Flushing Meadows Corona Park, we are hopeful that we are seeing the last of this awful proposal and that it will evaporate back into thin air where it came from.”

Following in Hiram's footsteps

Letter to the Editor (Queens Chronicle):

The Chronicle’s admonition to City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras to reject the proposed soccer stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, while well intentioned, will in my opinion fall on deaf ears (“Preserve, don’t pervert, Flushing Meadows,” Editorial, Feb. 28).

Ms. Ferreras has stated she would support the USTA’s expansion in FMCP, a Major Soccer League stadium in the park and the Mets owner Wilpon’s proposal to build a huge shopping mall on its current parking lots, which like Citi Field are on parkland, provided these three commercial entities set up a fund for the benefit of the park. In the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s, New York City did not sell, barter or alienate public parkland for economic reasons and there is no justification to do so at this time.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck. A contribution to a fund is a sale of public parkland in sheep’s clothing. What Ms. Ferraras fails to understand is that there is a difference between a philanthropic contribution from a civic minded person who seeks nothing from the park other than possibly name recognition and commercial entities who want parkland often free of charge and with taxpayer subsidies. The USTA, MSL and Mets all fall into the latter category and Ms. Ferreras’ proposal simply sanctions another unwarranted sale of precious public parkland and must be rejected. Ms. Ferraras’s proposal makes her a member in good standing with inept politicians who complicit with a disgraceful and unprofessional Parks Department have been abusing FMCP and the public be damned.

If Ms. Ferreras wants to be judged as worthy of her office, she should withdraw her absurd proposal and publicly oppose all further commercial intrusions in the park and that includes the USTA, MSL and a Mets mall. She should be in the forefront demanding the city and Parks Department stop treating FMCP as real estate and take proper care of the people’s park.

If Ms. Ferreras and far too many politicians prefer to treat FMCP as real estate and not a park, they should own up to it and press the city to de-list it from the municipal park system and turn it over to the city’s real estate department. The city could then sell it on the open market for hundreds of billions of dollars, an amount that would balance our city budget for years. I do not approve of such a drastic measure, but it may in the long run not be any worse than the ongoing gradual desecration of the park.

I take issue that since the three proposals involve portions of FMCP that are in Ms. Ferreras’s council district, her decision carries greater weight. This is nonsense. We are not talking about the corner grocery store that may require a variance, but a city park. The park does not belong only to the residents in Ms. Ferreras’s district, and not just the residents of Queens, but to all the residents of New York City. Any council member who blindly follows Ms. Ferreras is not pursuing his or her sworn duty to all the residents whose taxes pay their salaries and perks.

Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing

MLS threatens to walk

From the Daily News:

Don Garber, commissioner of MLS, warned the city on Wednesday that his soccer league will look elsewhere to expand if it can't cut a deal with officials for a new Corona Park stadium in a relatively short period.

"If we're not successful we'll throw our hands up, and it'll be far sooner than three years we throw our hands up," Garber said, after his opening season address.

"Then we'd take a step back and see if there's another market. Three years is too long. I don't want to put a year limit on it. But if it's not making progress, the time will come. There's a lot of activity in other markets."

Orlando has been mentioned as a possible alternative site for a 20th MLS team, though Garber sounded committed for now to Flushing Meadows.

"It's the biggest challenge we've ever faced," Garber said. "But you ask Bruce Ratner, Jim Dolan, Charles Wang of the Islanders or Jeff Vanderbeek of the Devils, they'll tell you this is an incredibly valuable market. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, so it's worth the effort."

Garber said negotiations continued with several private investors, and that the project would be built exclusively with private financing, for a relatively modest $350 million, including the replacement of parkland and soccer fields. Garber said he thought the league deserved some public monetary support, but "we get that's not going to happen."

If you build it, it will sink

Save FMCP uncovered this image - on the city's own website - that shows there is a marsh underneath the Pool of Industry, where Major League Soccer wants to build a stadium. If they weren't serious about this proposal, it would be comical. And even more comical/pathetic/embarrassing is the fact that there are actually elected officials that think this is a fantastic idea.

How they'll build a stadium in the middle of a river

From the Times Ledger:

A confidential proposal made by Major League Soccer last year provides insight into the sports group’s closely guarded vision of what a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park might look like, documents showed.

The internal plans, which appear to be a proposal from September 2012, were provided to the TimesLedger on condition that the source not be identified. In several renderings, the plans show that the stadium does not sit at ground level, but will rather be perched on top of a mound of earth that the league calls a “publicly accessible berm.”

Opponents of the park believe this berm is needed to build the foundation of the stadium, since the water table is so high in the park. Flushing Meadows sits in a flood plane, which would make it costly to dig downward.

The league said the proposal from last year does not necessarily reflect its current plans, which may or may not include the berm, since since its vision is constantly evolving. A league spokeswoman reiterated that the stadium would not be taller than the Unisphere, even with the mound.

MLS is staying mum about many details of the project, which is what makes groups like the Fairness Coalition believe there are too many unanswered questions associated with the proposal to make it viable — such as who the owner would be and if the team will even make money, hardly a guarantee for an MLS franchise, according to Will Sweeney, who is involved with the coalition.

Sweeney described the group of civic organizations as pro-park but not necessarily anti-development.

Not necessarily anti-development? I guess this Fairness Coalition is one of those groups that makes deals to get certain groups funded in return for "community support" for alienation of parkland. As if these special interest groups are an actual representation of people in the community. Don't be fooled by another form of tweeding.

Pols supportive of MLS dog-and-pony show

Photo by Geoffrey Croft/A Walk in the Park

From the Daily News:

Major League Soccer put on a grand show of support for a $300 million stadium in Queens on Tuesday night — recruiting the bulk of the audience for a packed town hall meeting.

About half of the seats in the Queens Theatre in the Park auditorium were reserved for co-sponsors and boosters, including soccer teams and construction union members.

They were told to arrive at least 30 minutes early — all but ensuring opposing voices were shut out of the 472-seat room, critics said.

“They actively kept out anyone with an opposing view,” said Stony Brook University city planning professor Donovan Finn, who is against the plan at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

MLS officials admitted half the seats were reserved, but noted the auditorium filled quickly.

From A Walk in the Park:

Most of the seats in the theater were filled by groups the league had invited to the event, like Queens High School Soccer, Big Apple Youth Soccer, the Borough Boys, the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York, Allfut, Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Shortly after 7 p.m. — by which point the audience had already partaken of M.L.S.-provided beef and chicken empanadas, collected "Let's bring pro soccer to Queens" T-Shirts," and listened to Spanish-language pop music blaring from the speakers — Univision's star sportscaster Fernando Fiore burst onto the Queens Theatre stage blowing a vuvuzela, according to Capital.

While trying to rev-up the packed crowd - which numbered in the hundreds - Fiore asked how many people play soccer in the park - about 12 hands went up.

As justification for wanting to seize the parkland they want to use to build a 35,000 seat stadium the project's proponents have waged a campaign to disparage the land in a variety of ways.

Apparently not familiar with public fountain policies MLS Commissioner Garber repeatedly stressed that the Fountain of The Planets, the area where they want to build half of the proposed stadium, was "not accessible."

"So It's closed, its closed," Mr. Fiore pressed. "You can't swim."

From the NY Times:

While support for the stadium ran high, concerns surfaced. Toby Ann Stavisky, a state senator from the 16th District, said that she supported the stadium but that more information needed to be exchanged.

“I have questions about the relationship between the soccer field, Major League Soccer and the agreement that they’re going to reach with the City of New York,” Stavisky said. “There are a lot of questions that have not been answered.”

Stavisky mentioned a recent report in Crain’s New York Business that provided details of a prospective deal outlined by the Bloomberg administration, including a 35-year lease at $1 a year with no property taxes or revenue sharing with the city.

“These are issues that have to be resolved,” Stavisky said, adding: “I have reservations about the two areas that they have suggested as parkland. I think they can do better.”

Asked which sites had been suggested as replacement parks, Stavisky declined to comment, saying such information was confidential.

Actually, no it's not. It's public information.

From the Queens Courier:

Councilmembers Peter Vallone and Mark Weprin agreed that before any official stance could be taken on the proposal, a dedicated, well-researched site for the new land has to be chosen.

“I don’t think we can responsibly take a position until we know all the details,” Vallone said. “Especially regarding what parkland would replace the park. This has to be parkland that effectively replaces and is as usable as this parkland is.”

Weprin said he was currently open minded to the idea, but many of the concerns first had to be addressed before any decision could be made.

“I think it could be great for economic development in the area,” he said. “But there are a lot of concerns that I would like to see addressed before we approve it. To reject it out right would be a mistake.”

Bend over, Queens. Here it comes.