Mets Owner Unveils 'Revolutionary' Metropolitan Park Around Citi Field

QUEENS, NY — Mets owner Steve Cohen unveiled a map of his long-awaited vision to transform the 50 acres of asphalt around City Field into a "revolutionary sports and entertainment park" in Queens, according to a news release from Metropolitan Park obtained by multiple outlets including Empire Report.

The park is set to feature 20 acres of public park space, five acres of community athletic fields and a playground, an accessible mass transit station, a food hall with "authentic global cuisine from local restauranteurs," and year-round live music and entertainment including a casino and Hard Rock Hotel—with a goal to "bring together fans, neighbors, and visitors," according to the release.

"It’s time the world’s greatest city got the sports and entertainment park it deserves," Cohen said. "When I bought this team, fans and the community kept saying we needed to do better. Metropolitan Park delivers on the promise of a shared space that people will not only want to come to and enjoy, but can be truly proud of."

Over the past three years, Cohen and his team have worked with community groups, elected officials, Mets fans, and locals to develop the Metropolitan Park vision and reinvent the space, which has simply been a series of parking lots for over 85 years—in fact, since the 1937 World's Fair, the park noted.

Metropolitan Park said its establishment will create thousands of good-paying jobs beginning with those created during the construction process, and that it will give preferential local hiring and opportunities for local and minority and women owned businesses.

"Queens has long deserved a space that brings everything together – new green space, 365-day-per-year entertainment, better connectivity and a real job creator in the area around Citi Field," Thomas J. Grech, President & Chief Executive Officer of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, said in the news release. "No other project has done so much work to truly partner with the community. And it’s this bottom-up approach that gives everyone a voice right from the beginning that works."

Read the full news release in the Empire Report.