Related and Wilpons Win Willets Point, Plan Mall [Update: Defendents 'Ecstatic' City Abandoning Eminent Domain]
Willets Point has long been one of the most neglected corners of the city, famously appearing in The Great Gatsby as “the valley of ashes.” The Bloomberg administration has been working for years to redevelop the 62-acre Iron Triangle, long home to auto body shops and a handful of heavy industries nestled between the Mets stadia and downtown Flushing.
Today, City Hall took a step toward spiffing up the site, if not quite in the direction it had hoped.
The administration withdrew its eminent domain case, known as a determination of findings, from state appellate court, halting takeover proceedings against a handful of holdout property owners in the area. This paves the way for the project to move forward, albeit in an altered form from the 2008 rezoning, which called for a mixed-use development on the site.
According to people familiar with the situation, the city is close to reaching a deal with the Related Companies and Sterling Equities to build a mall on the site. The exact details are still being worked out, and an official announcement is expected in the coming weeks. Read More
