Town’s former parks commissioner had severe considerations in regards to the proposed Metropolitan Park on line casino in Queens earlier than it was accepted by the state, noting the potential to extend flooding within the space and prohibit parks entry, paperwork shared with The Metropolis Reporter reveals.
Sue Donoghue, who left the Parks Division as commissioner in June 2025, wrote her fears in an inside November 2024 memo which was ready for the company’s capital division to undergo the Public Design Fee. The fee remains to be within the strategy of approving particular parts of the venture, and held one other listening to Tuesday.
The state gaming fee accepted the on line casino venture alongside the close by Resorts World in Jamaica and Bally’s in The Bronx final December. Building is underway on the car parking zone surrounding Citi Subject, the place the 50-acre venture will likely be constructed.
To win approval for Metropolitan Park, on the location of a Citi Subject car parking zone, Mets proprietor Steve Cohen agreed to pay a $500 million charge and a whole lot of thousands and thousands extra in anticipated tax income, together with a promise to take a position greater than $8 billion, in alternate for the 30-year gaming license.
The positioning of the longer term on line casino on the parking heaps round Citi Subject are legally parkland, and required state laws to permit improvement.
Metropolitan’s group outreach was broad, together with a number of conferences and donations to native organizations. They retained 11 separate lobbying companies, spending greater than $1.6 million in 2025, in response to the metropolis’s lobbying report.
Metropolitan Park is centered round a on line casino to be operated by Laborious Rock Worldwide, but in addition contains an leisure complicated, a lodge, a parking construction and parkland.
Donoghue, although, stated the proposed park didn’t “absolutely align” with metropolis parks design requirements, in response to the memo.
She additionally shared considerations over accessibility to the brand new park, its upkeep, when it will be open, and the way it might combine with Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the borough’s largest.
“We’re supportive of the creation and improvement of public open areas and recreation alternatives on this location,” she wrote.
“This masterplan contains primarily passive use of greenspace and a restricted mixture of energetic recreation areas,” she wrote. “It lacks elementary qualities that might make it a real asset to the area people and the town total.”
She continued that “as designed, some elements of the masterplan might make the customer expertise of those that use and journey to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park worse.”
Whose Park?
In her memo, Donoghue requested the builders to “share examples of thriving and welcoming public open areas subsequent to on line casino resorts,” noting the Parks Division hadn’t discovered any good current examples.
Donoghue additionally expressed her considerations that the land for the venture has one of many “highest subsidence charges within the metropolis,” which measures sinking because of shifts within the Earth. The realm was principally wetlands up till the 1900s.
The venture’s builders started “exploratory boring” on the location in April 2025, earlier than the on line casino was accepted, as a part of its improvement.
And Donoghue additionally famous that the proposed park across the complicated could possibly be closed to the general public as many as as much as 200 days a 12 months, relying on what was taking place at Citi Subject or the on line casino. The development was additionally set to chop down 575 bushes, she famous.
Karl Rickett, a spokesperson for Metropolitan Park, informed The Metropolis Reporter on Tuesday that the park is predicted to be open year-round.
“This will likely be a New York Metropolis public park owned by the town,” he stated in an announcement. “Upkeep will likely be achieved and paid for by Metropolitan Park. Hours of operation will likely be decided by the Parks Division, and we count on it to be open twelve months a 12 months.”
He didn’t verify or deny the destruction of current bushes, saying the 25 acres of inexperienced area will embody planting greater than 1,000 bushes.
Donoghue, who’s now the pinnacle of the Brooklyn Botanic Backyard, declined to remark.
MORE: Observe The Metropolis Reporter’s Protection of NYC Casinos
Town’s Public Design Fee, which authorizes sure parts of latest designs and development, held an hours-long assembly at Metropolis Corridor on the venture Tuesday as a part of its preliminary evaluation.
The fee nonetheless had questions and considerations on numerous design parts, like glass on the lodge and entrances and exits. The fee voted unanimously to proceed holding hearings on the venture, delaying it.
In public testimony, supporters of the venture praised the corporate’s funding in Queens and highlighted not the on line casino however as an alternative the opposite elements, just like the park and leisure complicated.
Former Metropolis Councilmember Costa Constantinides, who’s now the CEO of Selection Boys & Women Membership and a longtime supporter of the venture, stated he seemed ahead to the family-friendly facet of the complicated.
“I do know what’s there now — seeing it now it’s really a car parking zone, it’s not parkland by any stretch of the creativeness,” he stated. “It’s an asphalt car parking zone that pulls warmth, makes our group hotter.”
Constantinides’s group was chosen to function an upcoming group heart in Jackson Heights, which was funded with a $10 million donation from Metropolitan Park. A whole bunch of native residents later signed a letter expressing concern over the on line casino’s involvement in the neighborhood heart.
These against the venture testified for hours about their considerations over playing, which they discovered predatory, and fears of elevated flooding and site visitors.
Naveed Ahmed, a musician from Woodside, stated the on line casino was a risk, notably to immigrant communities.
“In a time the place New Yorkers, not to mention all Individuals, are crushed by record-high rents and price of residing, it’s merely unethical to extract from them additional by constructing a on line casino,” he stated.
