New York is poised to welcome a dramatic new casino-entertainment complicated in Queens: Metropolitan Park, the $8 billion venture backed by Mets proprietor Steve Cohen in partnership with Exhausting Rock, was formally really helpful for a downstate on line casino license by the state’s Gaming Facility Location Board on December 1, 2025.
The proposal transforms the 50-acre car parking zone round Citi Area right into a sprawling leisure district. Plans name for a full-scale Exhausting Rock Resort & On line casino, a 5,650-seat reside music venue, sportsbook, eating places, bars, and a big meals corridor branded the “Style of Queens.”
Metropolitan Park would come with a 1,000-room resort (with a big share of suites), a on line casino flooring, retail, a number of eating venues, and parking infrastructure to exchange the prevailing tons.
In line with the builders and native planning paperwork, the venture guarantees substantial advantages for the borough and town at giant. These embrace 23,000 union jobs, encompassing each development and long-term employment and roughly $1 billion in group and infrastructure investments, together with transit upgrades. A key a part of the plan is a serious overhaul of the close by 7-train station (Mets-Willets Level), making it ADA accessible and higher outfitted to deal with elevated visitors.
Along with leisure and hospitality infrastructure, the venture allocates about 25 acres for brand spanking new public inexperienced area; a improvement the proposal frames as a return of misplaced open land and a group useful resource that blends parkland with cultural facilities.
Supporters level out that Metropolitan Park will seemingly drive new financial exercise, assist union labor, and fund long-term enhancements to transit and group infrastructure. Queens Borough management emphasised the potential for global-level tourism, job progress, and revitalization, which positions the borough as an rising heart for leisure and commerce.
However the path to breaking floor is just not sure. Although the Gaming Facility Location Board has really helpful the license, the proposal should nonetheless be ratified by the total New York State Gaming Fee by December 31, 2025 earlier than a proper license is issued.
Opponents of the venture, together with neighborhood teams round Corona and Willets Level, have voiced considerations about visitors congestion, environmental affect, playing habit, and the displacement of inexperienced area. The location’s historical past as parkland required rezoning, a step that stirred controversy and required appreciable political maneuvering.
As of now, Metropolitan Park stands as one of many largest and most formidable casino-entertainment proposals in New York Metropolis historical past. If absolutely accredited, it should reshape components of Queens, alter the panorama round Citi Area and introduce a serious new leisure and gaming vacation spot to the borough’s longtime residents. For higher or worse.
