PRO: Willets Point Ascendant

For several generations Willets Point has been an eyesore in north central Queens. As Flushing to its east and Corona to its west have thrived, Willets Point has been frozen in time, with street scenes more likely to be witnessed in a third world country than the greatest city on earth. All of that is about to change.
Since the last time I wrote about Willets Point in this newspaper significant progress has been made on the Willets Point land use review process. The process, which began this past April, is the first step on the road to remaking Willets Point. First, Community Board 7, and then Borough President Helen Marshall approved the plan that the city has put forth while making recommendations to make a good plan even better.
On August 13, at the City Planning Commission hearing on Willets Point, 54 New Yorkers, including government officials, members of the business community, representatives of organized labor and other citizens testified in favor of the plan the city has presented, which will bring more than 1,000 affordable units of housing, 6,000 permanent jobs and 20,000 construction jobs over the life of the project.
All these gains will be preceded by the largest environmental remediation project in the city’s history, which will clean up the 60 acres at Willets Point and will set the stage for a dredging of Flushing Bay and Creek by the federal government.
As I write, the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) is making a good faith effort to buy out the existing businesses and relocate them to other parts of Queens. It has already made deals with four of the largest businesses in Willets Point. LaGuardia Community College, one of the premier educational facilities in the city, has been retained to retrain displaced workers at Willets Point. These workers, many of whom now receive minimum wage while working in the 21st century equivalent of sweatshops, will see their earnings soar.
None of what is happening at Willets Point will occur overnight. Large-scale land use projects in this city are rightly stretched out over many years to deal with the vagaries of the marketplace, and to ensure the best possible project. Willets Point will be no exception to this rule, but the result will be a community for the 21st century that complements the bustling communities of Corona and Flushing.
The new Willets Point will join a new Citi Field across the street, the U. S. National Tennis Center and outstanding cultural facilities such as the New York Hall of Science, Queens Theatre in the Park, the Queens Museum of Art, the Queens Zoo and the Queens Botanical Garden next door in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
Over the next several months, the City Council will debate the Willets Point plan. I urge you to contact your local councilmember to add your support for redeveloping Willets Point to unlock one of the greatest economic bonanzas our city has ever seen.
Claire Shulman is the President of the Flushing/Willets Point/Corona Local Development Corporation.