Citi Field Will Have A New Neighbor

The renovation of Willets Point will look to rejuvenate the area surrounding Citi Field.  Gone are the car lots and chop shops which proved to be eye sores for baseball patrons.  while the renovations are supposed to be all encompassing, the announced plans for the area were limited to a mall.  That has now changed.

Both ESPN and Newsday are reporting that construction will begin this June on a new 25-story hotel and convention center to go in directly across the street from the ball park.  Newsday get a bit more specific in stating that the site will house 292 five-star hotel rooms and 236 apartments above the roughly 106,000-square-foot convention center. The project will also include about 97,000 square feet of retail space, a restaurant and parking.

Its great that other investors are getting in on the action, as it would be horrible to see the project stall at any point.  With that said, this is a loooong project in general.  It was previously reported that retail spaces were originally targeted for completion in 2018, while other residential portions of the project could take as long as a decade.  Either way, its great for the area and the team that patrons will be able to enjoy the area when the come to a ballgame and just the park itself.

Can Mets Fans File A Grievance?

With the news that baby faced backup shortstop (at best), Ruben Tejada, may file a grievance over the Mets delaying his MLB service time, it got me thinking..How can we do something similar?

Personally, I couldn't care less when Tejada gets his walking papers. I suspect he'll be traded, cut or worse long before the end of the 2016 season, but Tejada seemingly wants to make sure he can get as far away from this sinking ship as quickly as possible. Eventually, he will..but we're not so lucky. 

Perhaps Mets fans can file a grievance that the Wilpon's are delaying their inevitable departure.  Or maybe we can file to have the team reduced to a minor league role since it would representative of the roster in recent years.  How about turning Citi Field into a chop shop when they renovate Willets Point.. You know, to keep up appearances. 

You get my point. Tejada may be right, but what does it matter. He's going to use the resources available to influence his situation. We have no such luck. The team sucks, ownership has just enough money to hold on for dear life and we'll be forced to ride out the storm..grievance or not.

Willets Point to be Cleaned Up

Earlier this year I ran the Spartan Race at Citi Field. This involved running in and out and around Citi Field doing all sorts of things I was not physically equipped to do. One thing the race gave me the opportunity to do was to stop occasionally and get a view of the areas surrounding Citi from the stadium's highest points. Anyone who has spent any significant time at Citi or Shea has seen, and likely sighed, at the horrible chop-shops...I mean auto-body repair chops...across the street from Citi Field. They are truly a blight on the area. It's unfortunate that such a beautiful ballpark has such horrible surroundings.

Well, the city, and specifically Mayor Bloomberg, is trying to help out. On Wednesday the New York City Council voted to approve the Willets Point Redevelopment project. The plan calls for a complete overhaul of the areas surrounding Citi Field, including the stadium's parking lot. Specifically, the chop-shops will be replaced by retail space and restaurants, as well as hotels.  Additionally, the Citi Field parking lot will be mostly replaced by what is essentially a shopping mall.  Over time the plan calls for the construction of residential housing units as well, which will likely consist of high-rise towers. The plan is estimated to cost about $3 billion and the Mets, through Sterling Equities, will presumably have a piece of the deal.

I am usually weary of any project where any city is going to drop money in the laps of sports franchises in any way (just google Cincinatti Benglas, stadium, and public finance to see why), and the city has earmarked approximately $400 million for the project already. However, I like this deal for several reasons. First, while Sterling Equities is involved and they are the real estate wing of the New York Mets owner's business empire, it is not directly the Mets. If Sterling wasn't involved, somebody else would be. Second, look at the picture at the top of this post. It's awful. It's truly a waste of land and space to have acre upon acre of disgusting, and potentially criminal, shops. While beautifying the area will certainly help the Mets, it will also help the city and my home borough of Queens. If looked at from above, that area can be a wonderful spot for these things. You have space, easy transport to and from, water and a baseball park. Why this has taken this long is beyond me.

That's not to say it is happening any time soon as it is. They have to cleanup the entire area, both environmentally and aesthetically, which currently has a target completion date of 2015. The retail space and hotel which is meant to replace the garages has a target completion date of 2016 and the mall has a target completion date of 2018. The residential spaces are well in the future and have a target date of 2024, but with dates that far in the future you cannot predict anything, let alone a completion date. The plan still has to go through environmental impact reports. The city has to accommodate the business owners that are currently in these areas, 95% of which are on board with the plan, but as with any plan, there are holdouts. Also...there will be lawsuits...lots and lots of lawsuits.

This doesn't even take into account the usual delays and over budget expenses that arise whenever New York City has such an ambitious plan. The World Trade Center plans have gone years and years beyond their projected calendar and the budget was swallowed up years ago.

In the end I think this is a good deal for the City, the Borough and, perhaps most importantly to you, the Mets. It will beautify the area, give Citi Field the surrounding it deserves, bring people to the Ballpark and perhaps help out the Mets budget. You can tell Mayor Bloomberg I am on board.

You can follow me on twitter at @joshuetree