Metropolitan Park

Fifty acres of asphalt next to Citi Field is about to become the most expensive private development in Queens history.

Metropolitan Park is an $8.1 billion casino, hotel, and entertainment complex on city-owned parking lots west of the ballpark, developed by Queens Future LLC, a joint venture between Steve Cohen and Hard Rock International. The New York State Gaming Commission granted the downstate license on 15 December 2025. The city lease was finalized a week later, on 22 December, after the U.S. Tennis Association won a temporary restraining order that forced a clause preserving US Open parking priority.

Project Scope

SHoP Architects designed the complex. McKissack and McKissack is leading construction. James Corner Field Operations has the 25 acres of public open space, which will connect Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to Flushing Bay with pathways, event lawns, picnic areas, and sports facilities.

The gaming floor carries 5,000 slot machines, 375 table games, and 30 poker tables. Alongside it sits a Hard Rock Hotel projected to be the largest in New York City, a 5,000-seat Hard Rock Live music venue, convention and meeting space, a food hall, retail, and a reconstructed transit center. Parking splits between above-ground garages and several underground levels.

Site preparation started in early February 2026 with curb demolition and lot clearing. A spokesperson confirmed at the time that this doesn’t yet count as a groundbreaking, which is a distinction the project has reason to make carefully: opponents filed suit against the Gaming Commission on 20 March 2026, an initial case was dismissed, and the matter was reassigned in April.

Why It Matters

The approvals record is the interesting part. City Planning approved the rezoning in February 2025, the City Council voted 41 to 2 in March, and state parkland alienation legislation passed the Assembly 138 to 7 and the Senate 54 to 5 in May. Those are not close votes for a casino on parkland, and they were bought with a community benefits package Cohen has valued above $1 billion, including a proposed overhaul of the Mets-Willets Point 7 train station the MTA hasn’t agreed to fund.

Willets Point is now one of the densest concurrent construction zones in the city. The NYCFC stadium is going up on the parcel immediately east, a 2,500-unit affordable housing plan is moving alongside it, and both share the same street grid and the same laydown constraints. Logistics coordination between two unrelated developers will decide whether either schedule holds.

Project Team & Details