In a report on City Limits I read that
Private money for a neglected park was at the center of Ferreras’ deal with the Willets Point developers, who would be drawing on free land and taxpayer subsidies worth more than the entire annual budget of the city’s Parks Department.
The developers—Related Companies and Sterling Equities, the real estate firm of Mets’ owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz—agreed to contribute $15.5 million over 25 years to the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Alliance, a nonprofit Ferreras had just founded with the Parks Department and the group New Yorkers for Parks.
The Willets Point plan involves the building of a 1.4 million-square-foot shopping mall and multi-story parking garages on 46 acres of mapped parkland at the northern end of Flushing Meadows. Even as the proposed mall encountered neighborhood opposition—Community Board 3 voted 30-1 to reject the plan—Ferreras was actively soliciting funds from the developers.
Via City Limits a definite must read.
