Is Willets Point, the eyesore near Shea Stadium that is known for its auto parts stores, its potholes and its puddles, about to go green?
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made public a plan yesterday that is intended to transform what he called “one of the most heavily polluted” places in the city into “a dynamic center of life, energy and economic activity, and a model for sustainability and environmental stewardship.”
The plan calls for razing the existing 61-acre, privately owned business district and replacing it with 5,500 units of housing, 500,000 square feet of office space, up to 1.7 million square feet of restaurants and shops, the city’s first convention center outside Manhattan, a 700-room hotel, a school and an eight-acre park.
The mayor said Willets Point, which some people call the Iron Triangle, would showcase his recently announced long-range program to turn New York into a greener city while creating housing for an expected influx of nearly one million residents by 2030.
“This will be the city’s first truly green community, with buildings that use the latest energy-efficient technology and parks and open spaces that give New Yorkers new places to play,” the mayor said at a news conference at the Queens Museum of Art in nearby Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
Fulfilling the city’s vision would require uprooting 250 businesses employing about 1,300 people, many of them recent immigrants. But Mr. Bloomberg said the area needed to be redeveloped all at once, because it was badly contaminated with petroleum spills and illegal dumping.
