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City prepares to solicit ideas for Willets Point

By Cynthia Koons

In an interview with the TimesLedger Tuesday, EDC President Andrew Alper said residents can rest assured that the number of parking spots in Municipal Lot 1 will not be endangered by the development of the 4.8-acre lot.

Concerns over parking at Municipal Lot 1, between 37th and 39th avenues off Union Street, emerged and re-emerged over the past few months as Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) and Assemblyman Barry Grodenchik (D-Flushing) held meetings to publicly request the city maintain the 1,100-spot lot while building a bookstore and youth center on the site in accordance with their wishes.

Some 12 proposals involving myriad plans for the site of the lot have been received, Alper said.

“A number of the proposals have more parking,” Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said at the interview. Alper said he could not guarantee that all of the community's ideas would be embodied in the actual building that is erected on the site, but he said the parking situation would meet the public's needs.

The EDC will select a developer for Municipal Lot 1 this summer, around the same time it will begin soliciting ideas from the public on how to develop Willets Point – a bleak parcel of land between downtown Flushing and Shea Stadium that is overrun with used auto repair shops.

“We want to engage minds in the private sector and public sector,” Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said of the request for ideas that he estimates will be issued by this summer. “We're committed to doing something to Willets Point. It's a disgrace.”

The entire price tag on the remediation of Willets Point is in the range of $230 million for the removal of the tenants, environmental cleanup of the property, construction of infrastructure and eventual building on the site.

Some area residents and politicians were hopeful that Willets Point would be the future home of the Jets, a team that once played in neighboring Shea Stadium.

The Bloomberg administration and the Jets both are strongly in favor of building a West Side stadium on a deck over the rail yards between 11th and 12th avenues and 30th and 33rd streets in Manhattan.

But Doctoroff said constructing a stadium in Willets Point, which would require a multimillion-dollar project involving the marshes, would cost much the same as the proposed West Side site.

“For an Olympic stadium you're going to have to spend the $230 million plus $120 million for pilings into the marshland,” Doctoroff said. “You're talking a $350 million investment just for a stadium to be built.”

He pointed out that the Manhattan stadium would generate greater revenues in terms of the value of its sky boxes, which made it a more attractive proposal for the Jets and the city.

“The real intense focus on Willets Point will be this summer,” he said. “It's a complicated problem given the environmental issues, given the need to relocate tenants with condemnation.”

Plans to clean up Willets Point date back to the 1960s when the notorious developer Robert Moses suggested the city use the land for the World's Fair.

In the 1980s real estate mogul Donald Trump suggested a football stadium be constructed. Ten years later then Borough President Claire Shulman requested that the land be condemned.

Despite all of these initiatives, the property has remained a blight in northeast Queens.

Ideas on how to rehabilitate the land have taken different forms in recent years, given that the city is bidding for the 2012 Olympics and the Jets are contemplating a move from Giants Stadium in New Jersey to New York City.

While debate surrounding the proposed Manhattan location for the Jets stadium ensues, Doctoroff said he was not sure whether a convention center is an appropriate alternative for Willets Point, either.

Regardless, he said the city promises to clean up the eyesore relatively soon.

“This is an effort that's really designed to result in getting something done,” he said. “But we want to cast the widest net possible.”

Reach reporter Cynthia Koons by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 141.