A rendering of the Metropolitan Park proposal featured on the plan's website. (Image via metropolitanpark.com)
“Let’s turn a parking lot into a park.” The slogan for billionaire New York Mets owner Steve Cohen’s Metropolitan Park development plan in Queens sounds so reasonable, so commonsensical, so in line with the desires of activists and urbanists alike. How can a park, of all places, be controversial?
Metropolitan Park isn’t the type of green space most people probably envision when they hear “park.” Instead, it’s more accurately defined by the development plan’s own subtitle: a “sports and entertainment park.”
The centerpiece of this entertainment is a casino in partnership with Hard Rock. The plan currently faces two major obstacles: privatizing a section of parkland that the casino would occupy and winning a competitive bid for a downstate casino license.
Both of these hurdles hinge on securing elected officials and community support. To do so, Metropolitan Park taps into urban demand for green space and free recreation, greenwashing its offerings to justify the land’s privatization and unrestricted development.
By calling it a “park,” promoting renderings that highlight greenspace with the new buildings in the background, and including offerings such as a food hall and concert venue, Metropolitan Park masks the exploitative nature of a potential casino.
A casino would exploit the financial resources of nearby residents, increasing economic precarity and public health outcomes. Research shows that New York City residents living closer to casinos developed higher poverty levels over time than those located farther away. Those at greatest risk are the communities in Corona and Flushing, the direct neighbors of the proposed site and home to predominantly Latino and Asian immigrant and working-class populations. Research has shown that proximity to gambling establishments disproportionately impacts low-income communities, leading to higher rates of problem gambling and alcohol abuse, as well as immigrants, who tend to experience problem gambling at higher rates.
In the ongoing debate over casinos in New York, the issue of Asian gambling is often overlooked. Asian Americans are at a higher risk of developing a gambling disorder than other racial groups. The lack of culturally- and linguistically-appropriate treatment for problem gambling compounds these harmful effects. Their problem gambling is concealed by the persistent stereotype of an “Asian gambling culture,” which suggests that cultural conceptions of luck and fate drive Asian people to gamble, obscuring the underlying factors contributing to problem gambling within these communities. Chinese Americans, in particular, are especially vulnerable; some casino operators competing for a downstate casino license have cited proximity to large Chinese populations as a top consideration, making Flushing, one of New York’s Chinatowns, a prime target for casino development.
Recent research on Massachusetts’ Asian residents underscores the potential dangers of casinos targeting Asian communities. A state-commissioned report on gambling in Greater Boston revealed that casinos employed targeted promotional tactics to attract vulnerable, working-class Chinatown residents, capitalizing on their boredom, stress and lack of alternative recreational options. The report also found that individuals who initially visited casinos for reasons other than gambling were still at risk of developing gambling addictions. These findings suggest that, despite other offerings in the Metropolitan Park plan, gambling and predatory marketing remains a significant risk for Asian residents.
Although Metropolitan Park has passed the community board stage of the Uniform Land Use Review Process, which could permit Cohen to develop on public parkland, it remains uncertain whether the plan has genuine community support.
Community boards, often touted as inclusive, often fail to unite and reach all ethnic groups and viewpoints. Urbanist Tarry Hum’s research shows how boards in Brooklyn and Queens have historically struggled to include its most indigent community members and immigrants, and have been ineffective in addressing race, capital, and neighborhood planning conflicts. While many praise the plan’s purported economic benefits, as the environmental coalition Guardians of Flushing Bay highlights, there has been no comprehensive study on the potential displacement of residents or small businesses in the surrounding areas.
In 2023, Steve Cohen spent nearly $2 million on lobbying — more than any other casino bidder — primarily through his affiliated groups, New Green Willets and Queens Future. Queens Future’s surveys have shown support from most respondents, but a survey by Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos found that most of her constituents oppose the casino, suggesting that data collected by proponents of the plan is unreliable.
“Queens Future LLC doesn’t mention that their Metropolitan Park project depends on revenue from the casino,” Neisa Yin, a Queens resident and organizer with the Flushing Anti-Displacement Alliance, notes. “Instead, they use vague terms like ‘50 acres of opportunity’ in their ads.”
This ambiguous language is common in their community outreach. In a session seeking community feedback on redevelopment, Cohen’s team presented two options: 50 acres of asphalt parking or building “something great,” with the latter option receiving unanimous support.
The Metropolitan Park plan presents a false binary between the current parking lot and a future park. The reality is that no one is advocating for the continued use of the parking lot, which is currently leased to the New York Mets for Citi Field. What’s more, the Metropolitan Park plan would actually double the number of parking spaces available and is projected to greatly increase traffic.
This false framing obscures the range of possibilities between these two options for the space that do not involve a casino or even privatization, such as the community-produced Phoenix Meadows Plan.
Cohen frames Metropolitan Park as an all-or-nothing choice, but we don’t have to settle. When asked why green space cannot be created without a casino, Metropolitan Park spokesperson Michael Sullivan told community boards that the casino would ensure year-round visitation to the entire development.
But a casino that would increase congestion, prey on Asian communities and exploit the earnings of the working class should not be used to justify the creation of green space. A park should be shaped by the community — not used as a bargaining chip in negotiations for corporate greed.