City commission delays approving designs for $8 billion Metropolitan Park casino resort next to Citi Field

New York City officials on Tuesday held off on approving designs for Metropolitan Park, the proposed $8 billion casino and resort from casino company Hard Rock and Mets owner Steve Cohen that would be built next to Citi Field in Willets Point, Queens.

The Public Design Commission’s unanimous vote to table the matter came after four hours of presentation from the project’s design professionals and comment from Queens residents — all of it, in theory, supposed to address technical and aesthetic elements of the project.

But Metropolitan Park — which would bring 5,000 slot machines, 375 dealer tables and 1,000 hotel rooms to what is nominally city parkland — has polarized stakeholders from the start, and much of their commentary described the stakes as existential.

Supporter Brian Chen, chief strategy officer for a social services organization, the Chinese-American Planning Council, said the park "has the potential to become a hub for workforce and economic development that connects Queens residents to meaningful employment, supports local entrepreneurship and creates pathways to long-term economic mobility."

Seconds later, a Jackson Heights woman called the project a boondoggle: "This is public parkland and no amount of vision glass or extra elevators can mitigate the fact that we’re getting these massive buildings, private buildings on a very fragile ecosystem that really belongs to the public ... Flushing Meadows is our Central Park, this is what we have in Queens, and we don’t want casinos or hotels in that space."

Another opponent, Alexis Kaloyanides, a designer from Jackson Heights, warned of "societal harms that a casino will bring into our community ... more drug dealing, more prostitution, more crime and extortion."

Metropolitan Park partners say their 50-acre project would include land that was mapped as parkland in the 1960s but only used for parking lots. Redevelopment would include a 25-acre public park and a food court where some street vendors who now sell on nearby Roosevelt Avenue could do business. A recent Hard Rock news release said the project would create 23,000 union jobs and deliver over $1 billion in community benefits including a revamped station for the 7 train.

The Public Design Commission has jurisdiction over “permanent structures, landscape architecture, and art proposed on or over City-owned property,” according to its website.

The plan for the project was approved last year by the Community Advisory Committee for the park and the Gaming Commission, said a project representative.

Renderings posted Tuesday on the commission’s website show as many as three towers, one almost 360-feet tall, with expanses of opaque and clear glass that one meeting attendee who opposed the project called "Darth Vader-esque." They also included a conceptual rendering of Roosevelt Avenue — now an unlovely stretch of road shadowed by the elevated subway line — transformed by the addition of bike lanes, plantings and active open spaces. A proposed utility plant and parking entry would be built with a "sculpted and fluted facade" that recalls the 1939 World’s Fair water ballet, the project’s planners wrote.

Hours after the commission closed its meeting, an anti-casino group, No Casino in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, emailed reporters a news release that summed up community concerns including "stormwater runoff, circulation of public space, the inclusion of gates on public spaces, opaque casino glass and more."

The release quoted Jack Hu, Flushing resident and organizer, asking the commission to "work with the public to design a process that centers the concerns of everyday community members, not the developers and their paid support."

In an email, Karl Rickett, a spokesman for Metropolitan Park, said project designers had already made changes in response to commission feedback that included a new overlook of the park, extended transparent sections around a building facade and adding a new escalator at the main park-side entrance.

"The project’s design reflects years of community engagement and input from our neighbors, and was developed with an all-New York design team," he wrote. "Since the master plan was approved in 2025, we’ve worked closely with the Commission and we thank them for continuing to offer thoughtful input on this important project."

Metropolitan Park was one of three downstate casino licenses the New York State Gaming Commission approved last December. The others were Resorts World at Aqueduct Racetrack, also in Queens, and Bally's at Ferry Point in the Bronx.