New York Newsday Supports Flushing Meadow Stadium

[shockazooloo]

Finally, Jets come around

Queens would serve the team well; stadium plan warrants scrutiny

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August 25, 2005

Let's assume for the sake of discussion that the New York Jets are serious about returning to Queens. Let's assume that they aren't using the specter of a Flushing football stadium only for leverage as they hammer out a new deal with New Jersey officials to stay in the Meadowlands.

The plan the Jets sketched out in a meeting this week with Queens officials sounds plausible. The team has its eye on a 15-acre spot in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. It wants to build itself an 80,000-seat home stadium that - for the first time in its history - it wouldn't have to share with another team.

Newsday believes the Jets belong in Queens, where fans would have easy access to games by expressway, by the Long Island Rail Road and by subway. The Jets have vowed to replace, inch for inch, any parkland they use. One idea: The team could convert the grungy Willets Point area into a new park in exchange for the land it uses near the Fountain of the Planets from the 1964 World's Fair.

All right. There are some sticking points.

The Jets want to use their new stadium immediately after the Meadowlands lease expires at the end of 2008. That's a nanosecond in the bizarro world of New York City public works construction. Can the city and the Jets make a new stadium happen that fast?

Another point: Citizen opposition is already building over the parkland swap. We wouldn't be surprised to see this issue morph into a major, time-consuming fuss. Can Albany and City Hall swiftly steer the project past this trap?

And what about the fine print? No one is talking about the numbers yet. Who will bear the land preparation costs? Will the city and Jets share the parking revenues? Will New Yorkers wind up on the hook for infrastructure costs as yet unmentioned? What little we have heard is promising - even exciting. But before we can proclaim this a great idea, we'll need to hear more.

[faba]

Of course Newsday being a Long Island based paper is going to support Jets in Queens

I want the Jets to get the best deal for the team and the fans wherever it is in the metroplitan area- that is where I will show up

[shockazooloo]

Of course Newsday being a Long Island based paper is going to support Jets in Queens

I want the Jets to get the best deal for the team and the fans wherever it is in the metroplitan area- that is where I will show up

I agree, Just like the Star Ledger supports the Jets staying in Jersey. But the thing is in New York they would have their own stadium something the team has never had.