NEW YORK (AP) - Mayor Bloomberg announced a plan Tuesday to turn 60 acres of junkyards and auto-parts shops next to the construction site of the New York Mets' new stadium into a new neighborhood of homes, shops, offices and entertainment.
"We believe that out of these ashes can rise New York City's next great neighborhood, a dynamic center of life, energy and economic activity and a model for sustainability and environmental stewardship," Mr. Bloomberg said. "After a century of blight and neglect, the future of this area is very bright indeed."
The master plan for the area known as Willets Point, or the Iron Triangle, would create a new neighborhood also including a school, a 700-room hotel and a 400,000-square-foot convention center.
Over the next decade the plan would replace 225 auto shops and 25 industrial and manufacturing businesses with 5,500 housing units, 1.7 million square feet of retail and entertainment and 500,000 square feet of office space.
Mr. Bloomberg's announcement at the nearby Queens Museum of Art is one step in a long process of redeveloping the site, due east of where the Mets' new Citifield is scheduled to open in 2009.
The area is now an eyesore that Mr. Bloomberg called "one of the bleakest parts of this borough." The entire site is polluted from years of petroleum spills and will have to be cleaned up before it can be redeveloped. Garbage and broken-down chassis are piled high, and there are no sewers. Many of the auto shops are low-rent chop shops in cinderblock sheds.
