Take me out to the mall game! (Queens Development Group)

Talk about a home run.

After two years of negotiations with some of New York’s biggest developers, the city has scored a victory at Willets Point at once smaller and bigger than previously pitched. Today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg released the line-up for a 52-acre Willets Point development boxing in Citi Field, which will be built by a development double play by the Related Companies and Sterling Equities, run by the owners of the Mets.

The project will not encompass the entire 61-acre Iron Triangle. Nor will it follow the outlines of a plan for phased development at Willets Point released in 2010. But rather than being a smaller project, a glorified mall as early leaks of the agreement had suggested, the new plan far exceeds what the Bloomberg administration had once called for on the site two years ago—and not simply because the Wilpons will now build a million-square-foot "entertainment complex" (don't call it a mall!) on the west side of their stadium. The bigger play is what is planned on the east side of the stadium.

“At Willets Point, where others have seen challenges, we have always seen enormous opportunities,” Mayor Bloomberg said at a breakfast hosted by the Queens Chamber of Commerce. “Today the valley of ashes is well on its way to becoming the site of historic private investment, major job creation and unprecedented environmental remediation."

Slideshow: Inside Metslandia >>

Previously, the city was looking to develop 680,000 square feet of retail, 400 units of housing and up to 387 hotel rooms on a 12.5 acre site. Now, with the expansion of the project west of the stadium—a 29 acre parcel to be known as Willets West—there is more room for housing and hotel rooms, and even some office space within a 23 acre swath of the Iron Traingle. The amount of retail also rises to 900,000 square feet, though it is meant to be community focused, rather than the destination, mall-style retail that will be in Willets West.

The number of housing units jumps to as many as 2,500 apartments, up from 400, of which 30 percent would have to be set aside as affordable housing. At full build out, that would be 875 units. Related has the option to build less apartments overall depending on market conditions, but spokeswoman Joanna Rose said the plans was to build as much as possible. "You have to build a critical mass to create a neighborhood," she said. And it is true that residential is a specialty of Related's, as well as one of the more profitable things one can build in the city.

There will also be up to 500,000 square feet of office space, which is targeted at local businesses, and two hotels, one of 200 rooms and another of 280, a hundred more than previously planned for the site. There will also be more open space than originally proposed, 5 acres instead of 2 acres.

Taken together, the 52-acre complex (not counting the stadium sitting in the middle of it) covers twice the area of Related's Hudson Yards development, but is also smaller in scale, 6 million square feet compared to nearly four times as much development on the Far West Side.

Were Related and Sterling to win later phases to develop the entire Willets Point area, it would control a huge 90 acre swath of prime Queens real estate. The development team has the right of first refusal on subsequent phases of the project.

Issues of eminent domain for the project are still looming, but also shrinking. Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city now controls 95 percent of the property within Willets Point needed to move forward on the first phase and hoped to own all of it soon, thereby avoiding eminent domain proceedings for the first phase. The city controls less land further east in Willets Point.

"The mayor is keeping his eye on Queens," Congressman Joseph Crowley said. "The jobs here will be enormous." Construction is expected to employ 12,000 workers over the course of the project and create 7,100 full-time jobs within the project area.

None of this can begin before the developers clean up their site, a process that is expected to begin next year or early 2014 and could last a few years given the mess at Willets Point—decades of contamination dating back to the valley of ashes, when it was a coal dump, as well as more modern toxins from oil to heavy metals from the auto and industrial work in the area.

The developers have promised a state-of-the-art, sustainable clean-up, but that also means it will be a few baseball seasons before anything can be built, let alone open. The city will contribute $100 million toward clean-up and infrastructure work, which will be repaid through $310 million in construction tax revenue and $150 million in annual taxes, according to the administration's calculations.

Once the site is cleaned up, it will proceed in phases, with the 200-room hotel and 30,000 square feet of retail and restaurants along 126th Street, on Citi Field's eastern flank. This part of the project will be designed by Elkus Manfredi and Perkins Eastman, with another possible collaboration on the hotel.

This first piece of development is meant to activate the entry to the stadium while also masking a 20-acre parking lot that will be paved behind it. This will facilitate the construction of Willets West because the plan is for the new million-square-foot complex to be built on the stadium's current parking lots.

The new lot will be fitted with temporary ball fields and community space that will be available half the year, during the Met's off-season and when the team is away on prolonged road trips. The developers are exploring whether this would be fields that could be driven on top of or temporary structures that need repeated installation, as happens at all-star games, the Super Bowl and similar events.

To accommodate this new lot and other modifications, the city will be seeking approvals from the City Council but is structuring the plan so as to avoid a full land-use review going through the community boards and borough hall.

Once Willets West is built, including a 2,500 car parking structure, the eastern parking lot would be replaced with the balance of the 4.5 million square feet of development—all that housing, retail and office space.

"This is a great asset for the team and for Queens," Jeff Wilpon, executive vice-president for Sterling Equities said.

Sterling and Related were both looking at the project, while it was the Wilpons that suggested the two should team up. That franchise is giving fans of the long-planned (at least as far back as the Mets' last World Series) project hope it will finally happen.

"I think this is just spectacular," Queens Borough President Helen Marshall said. "And with the Mets on board, I know it's really going to get done. They're fielding the best team, very focused on results."

Super soldier? (Daily News)

Most New Yorkers are used to their super doing some shady business, like moving furniture or drugs on the side. Who can blame the guy, what he's getting paid, and so long as he fixes your sink and looks out for packages, who cares? Well, what if your super was running arms for Hezbollah?

That is the case leveled against Patrick Nayyar, an Indian native living in Queens who is the super of his Flushing building. According to the Post, a jury yesterday found Mr. Nayyar guilty of attempting to provide material support to terrorists.

Nayyar, an illegal alien from India, was busted in 2009 after getting caught in an FBI sting operation. The feds said Nayyar and an accomplice sold an informant a handgun, a box of hollow-point bullets and a truck they believed would be used to transport missiles. They also allegedly conspired to sell the informant more guns, ammo and vehicles.

Mr. Nayyar now faces up to 75 years in prison.

When he was arrested in 2009, Mr. Nayyar was celebrated by the Daily News for helping his tenants fight off a crazy cabbie two years earlier. Yet this does not appear to be a case of religious extremism or stupidity but simply greed, according to prosecutors.

So he was just hustlin' for Hezbollah, not fighting for them.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

A holy site? LDS planning church on empty lot. (Bing Maps)

Mormons have never really been loved. From Brigham Young to Mitt Romney, theirs has long been a story of outcasts. Now, a Queens congregation is battling the same issues in an unusually bureaucratic setting: the Board of Standards and Appeals.

Citizens in Flushing are rally against a new church in their neighborhood because it exceeds the zoning code, the Times Ledger reports. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints has applied to the BSA for a variance, and locals, as well as Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, want it defeated.

The church's plans were unanimously shot down by Community Board 7 back  in January.

"We’re disappointed at the opposition, but understand where it’s coming from,”  David Duffy, head of eleven Mormon churches in the area, told the Times Ledger. "The problem they are not understanding is that this is a church, not a house or a multi-unit complex, and the increase in the square footage is for extra space for children to have Bible study lessons."

The problem isn't the Mormons, per se, but rather that their outsized plans:

Marshall recommended that the request for variances should be denied on three grounds.

First, the area where the Mormons want to build the 23,097-square-foot chapel, at 145-13 33rd Ave., was rezoned in 2009 to promote the construction of single-family detached homes, she said.

Secondly, the church is proposing to have a 94-foot steeple which would be one of the tallest structures in the area and out of character with the rest of the neighborhood, she said.

Lastly, Marshall asked the church to consider building a chapel on property it already owns at 144-27 Sanford Ave., where the zoning would permit a large structure.

The Mormons defend their decision because the exact design of the church has been used throughout the country without problems. The church owns land in Flushing that is zoned for a project of its scale, so opponents believe they should build there instead.

Can I get an amen?

mewing@observer.com

*Not actual scale (but you get the picture)

Have you ever seen one of those web videos where a person lays down at the edge of an airport runway and gets lifted off the ground by the force of the plane's engines?

Well, one Queens developer might just find out if that can work for an entire building...

As reported in today's Daily News, a real estate developer named Patrick Thompson is proceeding along with his plan to erect a 162-foot residential and commercial tower on a site in Flushing once home to the historic RKO Keith Theater. What makes this news, well newsworthy, is that the site is on the corner of Main Street and Northern Boulevard, putting the top of those 162 feet directly in the path of planes taking of or landing from nearby LaGuardia Airport.

And before you ask "where's the FAA?"... don't.

They know all about it, and they're rather pissed, but due to local development bylaws, the Federal Aviation Administration has no legal right to stop the construction of a building, regardless of the danger they believe it might represent to air traffic.

Yeah, that's all true.

So, while Mr. Thompson's design for the ole' RKO is kind of cool (in our opinion at least) it does give us pause that the FAA is concerned about the safety of its very existence, but has no real power to stop its construction.

As quoted in the Daily News piece, a spokesman for the FAA says that the agency "defer[s] to the local zoning regulations."

Once this thing gets built, The Observer will be flying out of JFK and JFK alone

tmcenery@observer.com

Where the f*ck is this thing?

Thanks to popular stops running toward Times Square, the Main Street subway station in Queens is now the 10^th busiest among the M.T.A.’s routes.

Any travelers on this route wishing to avoid the hordes of tourists, however, are out of luck. The No. 7 line is your only option at the Flushing, Queens, station, which might suit those who work near Bryant Park, Times Square or Grand Central Terminal.

And although this stop ranked as one of the 10 busiest on the subway, those complaining about the crowded commute on the 7 should really try taking a trip on the N train. Seriously. We do. Often. (And the N trains tend to be those narrower, get-to-know-your-neighbor-real-well models, not the spacious, spread-out contraptions common along the 7.)

The N goes to most of the necessary stops for those working near midtown, meaning New Yorkers each morning must bear the crowds running from just north of Coney Island all the way through the city's main commercial hubs. The N travels to almost half of the 10 busiest stops on M.T.A.’s route, so there is little rest for the weary along runs that can take up to an hour, especially now that it has stopped running express in Manhattan.

Other stations that placed high on the list of the subway’s busiest are, predictably, Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, Herald Square, Union Square and Penn Station. The Main Street station in Queens saw more than 18.6 million passengers during 2010; by comparison, Times Square came in at a staggering 58.4 million passengers.

pengel@observer.com