By Daniel Arimborgo
Plans to temporarily house a minor league baseball team owned by the New York Mets at St. John's University in Jamaica are being met with strong opposition by residents who live near the campus.
Irate residents turned out in droves for a Community Board 8 meeting Feb. 9 to discuss the plans to base the Kings, a Mets' farm team, at St. John's. Many of St. John's neighbors expressed concern that housing a baseball team would aggravate already serious traffic and parking problems in the area and increase air and noise pollution.
“The very best we hear tonight is 'we will minimize the impact,'” said Community Board 8 member Bernie Diamond. He then made a symbolic motion for the board not to extend an invitation to the Mets' minor league team.
A community coalition of civic associations from Flushing Heights, Hillcrest Estates and Jamaica Estates are angered by the Mets and the city Economic Development Corporation's joint plan to build a 3,500-seat minor league stadium on the St. John's University campus.
“It is over and above the $300 million-dollar construction project already being inflicted upon us by St. John's University's master plan,” said the community coalition. The nation's largest Catholic university opened its first three dorms in the fall and is planning to construct others as well as recreational facilities on the Jamaica campus.
The residents around the university “feel put upon” by St. John's and the proposed university expansion, said Ed DeCosmo, spokesman for state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose).
According to New York Met officials, the team's stay at St. John's is meant to be temporary. The Mets are in the process of negotiating to buy and construct a permanent home for their minor league team at the old Steeple Chase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn. But Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden and Brooklyn residents have voiced opposition to the Coney Island site for the Mets' farm team.
St. John's area civic groups fear resistance in Brooklyn to the Coney Island stadium could result in the Kings becoming long-term tenants at St. John's.
But Michael Carrey, president of the Economic Development Corp. contended the team would make “a very positive contribution” and said the Kings would be there for “a season, perhaps two, but no more.”
Compounding residents' consternation is the fact that Padavan and state Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Bayside) helped shepherd a bill through the Legislature, clearing the way for St. John's to buy an already existing baseball field on the campus of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, which was supposed to be rebuilt for the St. John's University baseball team.
Padavan said the original purchase price for the field at Creedmoor was reduced from $3 million to a little over $1 million.
“We went through all of that because St. John's really wanted to go out there,” said an angry Padavan. “They came to me originally. We wouldn't have put in the bill unless St. John's had been serious.”
Padavan said the proposed home for the Mets farm team had come on top of the new dormitories and parking garages at St. John's that had angered the community
“It's just been a terrible, terrible time for us,” Padavan said. “They keep changing and going back on their commitments and they deceive us.”
He cited the university's dormitories, which in the original plans were set back but now are slated to be built up against the street, facing the homes.
Rumors circulated that the Mets would use the Creedmoor field, but Dave Howard, the Mets' senior vice president for business and legal affairs, has said the Creedmoor site is not being considered.
“Creedmoor is just not a feasible site,” Carrey told the community board meeting. “If anything, Creedmoor is more expensive.”
Parking is also a key concern of St. John's neighbors. Although parking at the university's lot will be free for ballgame spectators, residents fear many fans will use street spaces all the same, limiting their own ability to find spaces.
A public hearing on the proposed plan will follow at an undetermined date.
