Islanders rumor puts Willets Point in spotlight

Originally published: May 11, 2010 10:09 PM
Updated: May 12, 2010 1:53 AM
By RANDI F. MARSHALL AND JIM BAUMBACH, Newsday
randi.marshall@newsday.com, jim.baumbach@newsday.com

The news that Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon has spoken to Charles Wang about building an arena in Queens and relocating Wang's Islanders hockey team to the site puts the spotlight on Willets Point: a 62-acre tract in Queens near Citi Field known as the Iron Triangle.

Last year, 29 potential developers formally filed paperwork with the New York City Economic Development Corp. to redevelop Willets Point. While Wang was not one of them, Sterling Equities, the Wilpon family's umbrella company, was, the EDC confirmed Tuesday. The EDC said a formal request for proposals will be issued later this year.

On the surface, a marriage between Wilpon, Wang and Willets Point seems ideal - there's a sports team already in place and the city wants to add housing, office space and retail. It was unclear Tuesday whether Wilpon would build an arena on the Willets Point land, or elsewhere near Citi Field.

Wang did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

Interviews show that developing Willets Point will not be easy.

New York City officials have said they are not contemplating the idea of the Islanders, or Wang's $3.8-billion Lighthouse project, heading to Queens, because an arena isn't part of the approved plans for Willets Point. The entire process, they said, would have to start over.

"There would have to be a very strong economic and development case made for it," said a New York City Economic Development Corp. official who asked not to be named.

Tuesday, Andrew Brent, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said, "There are no plans for a professional sports facility" at Willets Point.

With unpaved streets and no sewers, the Willets Point area is home to more than four dozen industrial businesses. The redevelopment could include a hotel, convention center, retail and residential.

Meanwhile, a number of business owners at the Willets Point site say they won't leave, despite city efforts to make a deal. About 21 of them have filed a lawsuit against the city.

"They're taking my home. They're taking my business. They're taking everything I worked for," said Plainview resident Jerry Antonacci, who owns waste management company Crown Container. "If they want to bring the Islanders here, or anything else, they better schedule it for 2020 or 2025, because we're going to fight it. We're not going easy."

But the city is moving forward. "Willets Point represents one of the city's most significant long-term development opportunities," said Brent, the Bloomberg spokesman.

Wilpon, Wang talk about moving Islanders to Queens

Originally published: May 12, 2010 1:52 AM
Updated: May 12, 2010 2:09 AM
By KATIE STRANG, Newsday
caitlin.strang@newsday.com

Jeff Wilpon, the Mets' chief operating officer, said Tuesday he has talked with Islanders owner Charles Wang about building an arena in Queens as a possible home for the hockey team.

Wilpon told Newsday in an exclusive interview that he has had recent discussions with Wang about relocating the team to a new Queens arena and also said that it remains a possibility that he could buy the team.

"I've had conversations with Charles," Wilpon said by phone Tuesday, "and we've talked about Queens. We'd like to be helpful and I think Queens is an option. We built Citi Field well under budget and on time. I have all my guys ready.

"We haven't really discussed ownership. It has been more of, 'Can we get something synergistic with Citi Field and a hockey arena, what can happen here?' "

Although the majority of their conversations have focused on building a new arena, Wilpon has not ruled out the possibility of owning the Islanders.

Wang has lost an average of $23 million a year since buying the team 10 years ago and is impatient with the pace of the proposed Lighthouse Project.

With the Town of Hempstead attempting to downsize Lighthouse development plans and Wang frustrated by the additional time and money it would cost to scale it back, the two sides have failed to come to an agreement. Still, Nassau officials say they would like the team to remain in the county.

"We are working hard to keep the Islanders in Nassau County," County Executive Edward Mangano said Tuesday.

A modified development plan is expected to be presented at some point this summer, Hempstead Town officials said.

In addition to the potential landing spots for the Islanders, there has been speculation that Wang, who did not return calls seeking comment, might turn to the National Hockey League for assistance and ask the league to take a controlling interest in the team.

"Totally and uncategorically untrue," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said in an e-mail to Newsday.

The Wilpon-Wang connection, however, sheds new light on the team's situation.

Wilpon said he has been in touch with Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber about bringing a soccer facility to the area as well, although the likelihood of building both a hockey and soccer venue looks slim.

"We probably can't do both," Wilpon said. "We just need to look at what could be done, as diverse as it is."

"We've had numerous discussions with Charles [Wang] and with Don Garber about soccer as well. We've been in touch, talking to Charles about what can be done synergistically with all of his technological [assets]. He likes the market here and they have all been positive conversations with him."

While the dialogue between Wilpon and Wang is an encouraging sign to Islanders fans who would like to see the team stay in New York rather than relocating to Kansas City or a Canadian locale, nothing is imminent.

"We are certainly willing and able and happy to work with Mr. Wilpon, but we have not heard any concrete plan as of today of bringing the Islanders into Queens," Queens Borough President Helen Marshall said. "It has to be real."

Wilpon said in the interview he, Wang and Garber are talking.

"It wouldn't be fair to say we have made any verbal agreements or even a handshake agreement, but we're definitely in the exploratory phase with both of them," Wilpon said.

Randi Marshall contributed to this story

Eminent domain battle in Hempstead

New York State's twisted eminent domain laws strike again.

WPU interviewed by Fox News Channel

To quote our rep, Richard Lipsky:

WPU will be featured on the Fox News segment, "It's Your Land," this Wednesday or Thursday-and host Eric Shawn interviewed us today and will be out at Willets Point tomorrow to talk with Jake Bono. In addition, Shawn's work on eminent domain can be found on the Fox News web site. As Auntie Mame once said, "Get me my shawl, I feel the winds of change blowing."

UPDATE: The segment will air on May 26th.

Report on Thursday's CB7 meeting

Thursday night, a hastily arranged meeting between a CB7 committee and NYCEDC occurred inside the College Point Corporate Park office trailer. The purpose was to again review NYCEDC's plans to relocate 3 businesses from Willets Point to the College Point Corporate Park, prior to the votes that will be held on Monday by the Queens Borough Board. If the Borough Board approves on Monday, then NYCEDC will be legally permitted to transfer the titles of the College Point properties to the 3 Willets Point businesses to enable their relocation.

The 3 businesses represented at the night's meeting and which will be the subject of Monday's Borough Board votes are Feinstein Ironworks, Sambucci Bros. Auto Salvage and T. Mina Supply.

Those who have followed the Willets Point story may recall that last year, a total of 5 Willets Point businesses were approved by CB7, the Queens Borough President, the City Planning Commission and the City Council to relocate to property within the College Point Corporate Park. Tonight's meeting and Monday's Borough Board vote account for only 3 of those total 5 businesses. The 2 businesses that are being denied relocation at present are Flushing Towing and Mets Metals. Although the proprietor of Flushing Towing had been invited to attend tonight's meeting, earlier today he was again contacted by NYCEDC and told that the meeting was "canceled". This outright lie seems concocted to discourage this business owner from showing up at Thursday night's meeting, and thereby eliminate any questions about why all 5 businesses whose relocations were approved last year by CB7, the Queens Borough President, the City Planning Commission and the City Council, are not in fact being relocated.

Apparently, the proprietor of Flushing Towing did not believe NYCEDC's lie that the meeting had been canceled, and he decided to show up at the trailer. Half an hour prior to the start of the meeting, he was seen conversing at length with NYCEDC lackeys outside of the trailer. Eventually, he left prior to the meeting without entering the trailer. During the meeting, no one present even bothered to ask what had happened to the other 2 businesses of the total 5 whose relocations to the College Point Corporate Park had been approved last year.

The 3 businesses provided "Cooperation Letters" to CB7, containing representations such as: Acknowledging the adequacy of the space available at the College Point site; business will not park any vehicles or trucks on any of the adjacent or adjoining streets or business lots; main access to the site will be on College Point Boulevard, and main egress exiting the site will be on 31st Avenue.

Committee Chair Chuck Apelian stated: "My sole desire is to have these 3 businesses come into College Point, as owners; and become model citizens of the College Point Corporate Park. And the biggest intent we have, is that we never hear of any problems or any issues from them at all. ... And that's the purpose of the memorialization of these letters."

However, CB7 Chair Gene Kelty wondered what recourse there would be if the terms of the letters are violated in the future. Kelty asked, "Those letters that we now have -- If they don't abide by them, what enforcement action is there and what agency is going to enforce it?" When told by NYCEDC that NYPD would be responsible for enforcement, that did not sit well with Kelty. "See, now we have a problem. ... You're not going to dump that on the PD because they're not going to enforce it. They haven't enforced anything in 25 years that I've been here."

Kelty insisted that instead, NYCEDC's legal department should commit in writing to "sue" any of the 3 relocated businesses that fails to comply with any provision of their Cooperation Letter, to force their compliance. Kelty concluded: "Unless EDC gives me a commitment, in a letter in writing, by next week, saying that their legal department will take legal action to back these letters up, this is as useless as Mayor Bloomberg's promises."

NYCEDC diplomatically pointed out that NYCEDC may not be legally entitled to compel relocated businesses – by suing them – to comply with provisions of the Cooperation Letters. And the business owners appeared insulted, that Kelty is envisioning future circumstances in which NYCEDC must sue the businesses.

After further discussion, Kelty ultimately requested that NYCEDC provide a letter signed by NYCEDC President Seth Pinsky, assuring CB7 that NYCEDC will be responsible for contacting enforcement agencies in the event that relocated businesses do not abide by the terms of the Cooperation Letters that they have signed.

The Queens Borough Board reportedly is scheduled to vote on this matter during its meeting on Monday at 5:30P.M. If the Borough Board approves, the 3 businesses still will not take title to the College Point properties until their closing dates with NYCEDC, which have not yet been scheduled and are not expected to occur until several months from now.

Meanwhile, why the relocation of 2 other approved businesses is not proceeding is unknown. And above all, there is no plan whatsoever to relocate the overwhelming majority of 250 additional Willets Point businesses.

Businesses being "fast tracked" to College Point

From Queens Crap:

There's going to be a meeting about 3 of the 5 Willets Point businesses being fast tracked into College Point. The meeting will be held Thursday May 6 @7:30 PM. Meeting will be at College Point Corp Park Office (Out house) On Ulmer and 26 Ave. This has been called by CB7 as an emergency meeting. It's going to be crowded.

By the way, why rush to sacrifice City-owned CPCP properties to relocate businesses, when there is no assurance that the development for which they need to relocate can proceed?"

It all comes down to the ramps...

From the Queens Courier:

At issue is whether the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and State Department of Transportation (DOT) will approve two new highway ramps on the Van Wyck Expressway in order to help alleviate some of the additional traffic that is expected in the area. So, it’s not surprising that advocates from each side have very different views on the issue.

“We think that the highways cannot physically handle the massive amount of traffic that the Willets Point project would dump on it,” said Michael Gerrard, a lawyer representing WPU. “Merely adding ramps doesn’t increase the mainline capacity of the Van Wyck that will remain a chokepoint.”

Dave Lombino, a spokesperson for the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which is the lead agency working on the Willets Point project, said that the approval for the ramps is all part of the redevelopment process and that lobbyists for the WPU are trying to create a false impression of uncertainty around a critical project that will generate thousands of jobs and economic development for the city.

“But we’re hopeful there will not be any significant delay in the approvals, and we’re confident we will remain on target to complete the project on the timetable we’ve set forth,” Lombino said.

In February, the city submitted its preliminary draft environmental assessment to representatives from the two agencies, and Brian Ketcham, a traffic engineer hired by the WPU, said the report was fraught with errors. He believes that EDC is under-estimating the additional traffic that will result from the development of Willets Point and the nearby Flushing Commons development at downtown Municipal Lot 1.

Ketcham said that the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for both projects conceded that in 2017 there would be gridlock traffic conditions on the highway, but the initial AMR projections for 2035 showed significantly less traffic.

“I cannot imagine what goes through the minds of EDC when they have two projects that are reporting gridlock conditions, and then they turn around and they say there will be free-flowing traffic,” Ketcham said.

Jake Bono, a third generation owner of Bono Sawdust that has called Willets Point home for nearly 80 years, said that the city’s initial presentation to the FHWA and DOT was not surprising because they have been employing the same tactics from the beginning.

“They are committed to doing whatever it takes to get the project done. If it’s illegal, if it’s immoral, it doesn’t matter,” Bono said. “At the end of the day they can never produce a report that will work.”