Francisco Moya, born and raised in Corona, Queens, said he learned how to play soccer with his dad on the lawns of Flushing Meadows, “in the shadows of Willets Point.” His dream was to one day play for “the greatest football club in all of the world, FC Barcelona.”
Instead, the City Council member entered politics, but his path eventually returned to futbol, and to Willets Point, this time as perhaps the loudest champion of a $780 million soccer stadium for the New York City Football Club. Last week, that vision came a step closer to reality when the City Planning Commission gave its approval to an ambitious plan to revitalize Willets Point, a 62-acre tract long defined by auto body shops and urban neglect, but also urban wetlands.
The City Council is expected to approve the final phase of the plan in the coming weeks to make way for the construction of the 25,000-seat stadium next to CitiField along with a 250-room hotel, a public school for 650 students and 2,500 units of affordable housing, including 133 homes for homeless New Yorkers. It also will be a boon to Mayor Eric Adams, on whose watch the “once-in-a-generation project,” as he called it, will come.
Artist rendering of the sprawling Willets Point development, with the anchor professional soccer stadium, dubbed The Cube, in the foreground.
Courtesy of New York City Football Club
No major opposition stands in the project’s way, but criticism persists that the city gave away too much in economic incentives to developers, denying the city hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Likewise, environmentalists said they worry the project will cause further ecological harm to an area that features long-underappreciated wetlands. And a handful of merchants stand to be displaced – at least those who have not yet been forced out.
“Mayor after mayor moved the ball down the field in Willets Point, and our administration is delivering on this transformative vision with the largest 100% affordable…
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