NEW YORK | Sunnyside Yards

[Busy Bee]

My politics are firmly left and I hate the fact I have to share my ideology with these imbeciles.

[NYguy]

https://gothamist.com/news/mamdani-p...nnyside-queens

Mamdani pitched Trump on building massive housing development in Sunnyside, Queens


By Jimmy Vielkind, David Brand, Brigid Bergin and Clayton Guse
Feb 26, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday pitched President Donald Trump on a plan to build 12,000 units of housing over the Sunnyside Yards in Western Queens, according to three people who were briefed on the Mamdani administration's plans but not authorized to speak publicly.

The pitch came during an unscheduled Oval Office meeting. While they are ideological opposites, the Republican president and democratic socialist mayor have enjoyed an unexpected bonhomie since Mamdani's election last year. Trump, a Queens native, lived in New York City for most of his life.

The idea for housing on the site was first floated under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, but stalled under Mamdani's predecessor Eric Adams. In March 2020, officials at the city Economic Development Commission estimated the project to construct a platform and thousands of new affordable units, along with offices and public space, would cost about $14 billion.

Mamdani’s spokesperson Joe Calvello told reporters that the mayor and Trump discussed a plan to build 12,000 new housing units. Calvello did not specify where the housing would be located.

“The last time the president and the mayor met, the president asked him to come back with some big ideas on how we can build things together in New York City,” Calvello said about Mamdani’s previous meeting with Trump at the White House in November. "The president was very enthusiastic about this idea."

At one point, the mayor held up a mock Daily News front page with the headline “Trump to City: Let’s Build.” City Hall aides did not confirm whether the mayor specifically referenced Sunnyside.

Any construction on the site would require federal approval because the Sunnyside train yards and surrounding rail infrastructure are owned by Amtrak.

The MTA in 2016 dropped previous plans for a new commuter rail station atop Sunnyside Yards, which would have been a centerpiece of a new housing development. The new station would have served Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains that will operate in and out of Penn Station through the MTA’s ongoing Penn Access project.

The station was initially a part of the MTA’s long-delayed East Side Access project, which wrapped in early 2023 and created a new LIRR station beneath Grand Central Terminal. The planned Sunnyside station was abandoned as the East Side Access project faced delays and cost overruns.

It’s unclear if the plan floated by Mamdani at the White House would revive the Sunnyside station plan.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/0...using-00801450

Mamdani gifts Trump fake front page to cajole him into supercharging NYC housing development





By Chris Sommerfeldt
02/26/2026

For the second time since being elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani met with President Donald Trump at the White House. But this time, he showed up with a very specific request for the Queens-born president.

Mamdani implored Trump on Thursday to provide federal funding for a long-stalled project that would involve building 12,000 affordable apartments on top of Sunnyside Yards in Queens, according to a person with knowledge of the sit-down. It was not immediately clear if Mamdani asked for a specific dollar amount, but the project was estimated to cost at least $14 billion when the city first proposed it in 2020.

The democratic socialist’s aides knew he shouldn’t just seal the deal with a handshake, though. So Mamdani arrived in the Oval Office with a mock New York Daily News front page casting the Queens-born president as the builder-in-chief and a would-be hero to his hometown. Trump, grinning and clutching the fake front page, posed for a photo with Mamdani — and the mayor quickly shared the image on X.

“I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon,” Mamdani captioned the photo. “I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City.”

“Backs new era of housing,” the fake front page held up by Trump blared. “Trump delivers 12,000+ homes, most since 1973.”

Joe Calvello, Mamdani’s press secretary, confirmed that the mayor’s office mocked up the ersatz front page and brought it along as a gift in hopes of cajoling Trump into providing federal funding for a 12,000-unit affordable housing development in New York City. Calvello declined to comment on the specifics of the Sunnyside Yards proposal, however.

Calvello said Mamdani’s team crafted the plan after Trump asked during their first White House meeting in November for the mayor “to come back with big ideas to build big things together in New York City.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/n...p-meeting.html

Mr. Mamdani provided the printouts to Mr. Trump, Anna Bahr, a spokeswoman for City Hall, said. She said the 12,000-unit number referred to an actual proposal. She declined to provide any further detail, but it is possibly a reference to Sunnyside Yards, the massive rail yard in Queens over which the city has long dreamed of building 12,000 units of housing.

“He came to the president today with a couple of pitches that would produce and construct more housing in a handful of projects than has happened in 50 years,” Ms. Bahr said.

Ms. Bahr said that Thursday’s meeting stemmed from the last one, when the president had asked the mayor to come to him “with ideas of big things that they could build together,” and that the housing proposal was an example of one such idea.

[Busy Bee]

Two things:

1) kinda icky

2) if you're going to the massive expense of decking over the railyard, you should be proposing at minimum twice that amount of units


I'm not holding my breath for this. Something big will happen at Sunnyside Yards eventually, but I'd prefer to see that come in the form of a massive mixed-use masterplan phased over a period of years with ideally a convention center and/or a sports facility instead of a huried politicized housing development that could go in numerous other areas around the boroughs.

[BK1985]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Two things:

1) kinda icky

2) if you're going to the massive expense of decking over the railyard, you should be proposing at minimum twice that amount of units


I'm not holding my breath for this. Something big will happen at Sunnyside Yards eventually, but I'd prefer to see that come in the form of a massive mixed-use masterplan phased over a period of years with ideally a convention center and/or a sports facility instead of a huried politicized housing development that could go in numerous other areas around the boroughs.

I totally agree, the baseline number should be double the listed amount if not more.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by BK1985

I totally agree, the baseline number should be double the listed amount if not more.

So, I take that to mean you 2 don’t think NYC could use the 20,000 units of housing? This development was going nowhere, fast. Any signs of life, or action to get any of it built is welcome. Haggling over exact numbers at this point is useless.

[ChiND]

I had always hoped to see a new convention center here so that the Javits site could be devoted to better uses.

[BK1985]

Originally Posted by NYguy

So, I take that to mean you 2 don’t think NYC could use the 20,000 units of housing? This development was going nowhere, fast. Any signs of life, or action to get any of it built is welcome. Haggling over exact numbers at this point is useless.

What are you talking about? where did i say anything about 20,000 units? I'm just concurring that if this site is going to be used for housing then we can do better than just 12,000 units. Also restore the damn street grid.

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by NYguy

So, I take that to mean you 2 don’t think NYC could use the 20,000 units of housing? This development was going nowhere, fast. Any signs of life, or action to get any of it built is welcome. Haggling over exact numbers at this point is useless.

That's not what I said. What I said was I think new housing would better be absorbed in all corners of the city rather than as part of a wildly expensive Yards development that would likely be rushed and not the best and ideal use of the opportunity.

[Crawford]

Sunnyside Yards is so enormous that 12,000 units sounds kinda modest. I'd agree that 20,000 units sounds more appropriate. I hope Mamdani goes bold.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by BK1985

What are you talking about? where did i say anything about 20,000 units? I'm just concurring that if this site is going to be used for housing then we can do better than just 12,000 units. Also restore the damn street grid.

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

That's not what I said. What I said was I think new housing would better be absorbed in all corners of the city rather than as part of a wildly expensive Yards development that would likely be rushed and not the best and ideal use of the opportunity.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Sunnyside Yards is so enormous that 12,000 units sounds kinda modest. I'd agree that 20,000 units sounds more appropriate. I hope Mamdani goes bold.

With all of that being said, it's still ridiculous that you people don't think it's a good idea to jump start this development - which is all anything would be at this point - with something that is hardly a concrete proposal (in terms of units). What the mayor is trying to do (with more success than his predecessors at this point) is approval for funding that will get the platform - a necessary first step - built. Haggling over exact numbers for a development that is in infant stages at this point is foolish. The site could support 10,000 units. It could support 20,000 units. It could support 30,000 units. None of that matters at this point, because it will continue to evolve. The Hudson Yards, built on a much smaller platform, has already evolved many times since it's conception. And it's still changing. Meanwhile, this project - which was all but dead - is given a chance of life, and people are complaining.

As far as building housing elsewhere, DUH! They can chew gum and walk at the same time. We don't say "they shouldn't be building office towers at the Hudson Yards because we can build in Midtown East or Downtown". The mayor wants to build 200,000 units of affordable housing - across the city. Lack of large building blocks is what hampers that development, not to mention zoning regulations. This is exactly a place you take advantage of, if you can. Given those targeted numbers, do I think the mayor will try to increase the amount at Sunnyside? Maybe so. These are just talks right now, to get the commitment to funding for the platform, without which none of this moves forward, I don't care how many units you come up with at the site.

[NYguy]

Now, back to the plan - which is just a "plan" at this point, conceived years ago - we already know some of the findings.

But don't take any of this as a concrete plan, because it won't all be built at once, and it will change over administrations.

[BuildThemTaller]

It's remarkable that this render of LIC is maybe 3 or 4 years old and is already so outdated...

Originally Posted by NYguy

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by BuildThemTaller

It's remarkable that this render of LIC is maybe 3 or 4 years old and is already so outdated...

It will be even more so with the recent LIC rezoning


Like clockwork, in New York City, the battle lines are already being drawn. Not even knowing what the actual details will look like.

[NYguy]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/n...ani-trump.html

Can Mamdani (and Trump) Build a Neighborhood Over a Queens Rail Yard?
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said President Trump was receptive to partnering on a project to build some 12,000 homes in Queens. Many hurdles still await.





By Dana RubinsteinMihir Zaveri and Stefanos Chen
Feb. 27, 2026

..... the mayor faces a grinding, bureaucratic slog if he wants to get it done.

Nobody knows exactly how the development will unfold, or if it will even be built. The project, which involves building 12,000 homes over a new deck atop Sunnyside Yard, a massive working rail yard, is likely to involve a private developer, or several. It is also unclear whether it would be completed in pieces, or if it would involve any market-rate apartments.

Then there are the challenges. The project is exceedingly complicated. Mr. Mamdani will have to find the money, with the city appearing to suggest the deck alone would require at least $21 billion in federal grants. He will have to convince local politicians and residents to support the development. And he will need to win the approval of Amtrak, the passenger rail service controlled by the federal government, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that oversees the city’s public transit.

On Friday, Jen Goodman, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathy Hochul, signaled Ms. Hochul’s tentative support.

“New York needs more housing,” Ms. Goodman said. “Any initiative that could deliver 12,000-plus new homes would be good news for New Yorkers and a positive step toward lowering the cost of living. We look forward to seeing the details and partnering with the city to get more homes built.”

https://queenseagle.com/all/2026/2/2...d-housing-plan

'Trump Yard’: Locals worry they’ll be cut out of Mamdani, Trump Sunnyside Yard housing plan





By Ryan Schwach
February 27, 2026

Western Queens locals are wary of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to collaborate with President Donald Trump to build 12,000 units of housing in the World’s Borough, where the mayor once lived and where the president was raised.

.....City Councilmember Julie Won, who is running for Congress against a Mamdani-backed candidate and who represents the busy rail yard, was especially critical of the lack of communication.

“Any proposal that reshapes Sunnyside Yard must begin with the neighbors who live here,” she said in a statement. “Our community deserves a seat at the table long before anyone, including the mayor, makes headlines in the Oval Office.”

“I welcome the opportunity to build more deeply affordable housing and other federal investments for public transit and other infrastructure, but it cannot be done behind closed doors unilaterally," she added.

Borough President Donovan Richards struck a more approving tone in a conversation with reporters on Friday. Still, he said he’ll believe the plan, which would cost an estimated $21 billion and require significant federal funding, when he sees it.

“When the check cashes, then I'll truly believe it,” he said. “I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but at the end of the day, the mere fact that this is generating a national conversation around Queens…and Sunnyside Yard, is a great opportunity, especially as we face a looming housing crisis.”

Richards has been mulling over a potential revival of the Sunnyside Yard project, which was proposed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, for years. He brought it up with the Adams administration to no avail. His big idea, and one he hopes to push as this project develops, is to put a basketball arena in Sunnyside Yard that would host the New York Liberty. It would be the first women’s-specific venue in the country.

“I think this could be a historic moment, once again, to do something out of the box, something creative, and still address the affordability crisis,” he said.

Speaking to reporters at an unrelated event in Brooklyn on Friday, Mamdani said that Trump was "interested” in the project.

“The president shared his interest in the proposal, and I am encouraged by the fact that we will continue to talk about this proposal,” he said. “It is going to be a long process.”

“This is a long-standing project that will also require a long-standing commitment, and we're just at the very beginning of it,” he added.

City Hall also said that Mamdani emphasized to Trump the need for affordable housing development, and creating it with less red tape than is normally required in New York City’s land use approval process.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2026/02/27/s...pment-funding/

Mamdani Seeks to Restart Sunnyside Housing Plan, But Needs Billions From Feds
The mayor appealed directly to Trump to get the money to create the massive apartment project over a railyard in Queens.





by Samantha Maldonado
Feb. 27, 2026

The project, Sunnyside Yard, would consist of 12,000 affordable apartments, with 6,000 of those being in what the administration described as a “Mitchell-Lama-style,” or units created via cooperative and subsidized homeownership.

The project would also include new parks, schools and healthcare clinics, according to City Hall.

Mamdani framed the housing development project as part of the solution to meeting the city’s affordability challenge. He touted the proposed project as the “single largest housing development New York City has seen since 1973.”

It’d have more housing than “Hudson Yards and Battery Park City together, and not just housing but also parks, also childcare, also hospitals — an entire new neighborhood,” Mamdani said.

The project does not have any public approvals in place yet, but Won urged City Hall to commit to going through a land use review process that would require Council sign-off of the project. Won last year gave her approval to a major rezoning of Long Island City that could result in 14,700 apartments — but only after extended negotiations to ensure several elements she pushed for, including sewer upgrades and the restoration of a park.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said he was excited about the prospect of developing Sunnyside Yard, and had tried to get the Adams administration to take another look at it.

[BK1985]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Like clockwork, in New York City, the battle lines are already being drawn. Not even knowing what the actual details will look like.

Doesn't it always? All i have to say is build baby build, we need it.

[mrnyc]

i would think its important to get a section of it decked and built asap as a demonstration or proof of concept for more.

[chris08876]

Politics aside, if they can expedite this, because the city housing situation is dire, more the merrier.

Yeah the original time table was borderline stupid. This can't wait until late 2030's or 2040's... we need this soon and work starting.

I think we can all agree that regardless of whose hands are involved, IF it helps get the ball rolling and in a reasonable time, good news I'd think.

Also, anything Mamdani can do to cut the regulatory red tape, to speed the process up, even better. Most of NYC's problems are caused by, well, NYC itself. Stupid land policies, regulations and antiquated rezoning. They need to look to Jersey City to see how its done or Tokyo. Just build man!!! Amazing what rezonings and an anti-NIMBY discourse gets one. It gets housing and towers rising. Suprise suprise!!!

[NYguy]

^ They need more action, and less talking. All people ever seem to want to do is talk about developments, and debate the merits of this or that, meanwhile, generations grow old, and still nothing done. The time for action is "immediately".

That being said, we know this will drag on because of the various approvals and "community engagements" that will take place to try to placate NIMBYS who can't be placated. It may be unfortunate, but New York really needs a new Moses.



https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/pol...side-rail-yard

Where Mamdani wants housing, Trump once imagined a football stadium


BY Bobby Cuza
Mar. 04, 2026

Mayor Zohran Mamdani traveled to the White House last week to pitch President Donald Trump on a plan to build 12,000 housing units over the Sunnyside rail yard in Queens, reviving a proposal that has surfaced repeatedly for nearly a century.

“The president was interested in the idea,” Mamdani said Friday.

Trump’s interest in Sunnyside Yard dates back to the early 1980s. The state’s Urban Development Corporation named him to the board of a subsidiary, the New York State Sportsplex Corporation, which was tasked with finding sites for a new sports complex. Trump, then owner of the USFL’s New Jersey Generals, had been scouting stadium locations.

The New York Times reported in January 1984 that Trump “was said to have focused on a site on the Bronx side of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, on Flushing Meadows, and on the Penn Central rail yards in Sunnyside, Queens.”

Months later, Times sports columnist George Vescey wrote that “Donald Trump is casting his eye on the wide-open spaces of the railroad yards in Sunnyside, Queens, as a place to build the Trumpdome.”

Vescey speculated that Trump wanted to relocate the Generals from New Jersey. “He would much rather own the New York Trumps,” Vescey wrote, “and put palace guards in front of an ornate pleasure dome in Sunnyside.”

The stadium proposal never advanced.

Building over Sunnyside Yard has long been a goal of planners and politicians.

In 1931, the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs declared: “There is urgent need of improvement of the Sunnyside Terminal district at Queens Plaza in Long Island City.”

The plan’s authors suggested an airfield or a rail hub topped by an office tower.

“This is a classic New York situation,” said Tom Wright, president and CEO of the Regional Plan Association, “where almost every decade over the last century, you could find a plan by some public agency or civic group or somebody for what to do with this asset.”

Other proposals followed, including a 1971 Urban Development Corporation plan featuring 20-story apartment buildings and a mall, and a 1973 proposal by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller that included two racetracks and a football stadium.

Sunnyside Yard was later eyed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his former deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, who in 2014 pitched a convention center for the site.

Doctoroff wrote in the Times that “the perfect undeveloped location for a new convention center exists at Sunnyside Yards, the more than 160-acre rail yard that carves a nasty scar through the heart of Queens.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio advanced the most detailed modern effort in 2015.

“It’s an opportunity to keep our city affordable,” de Blasio said in his State of the City address. “I’m referring to Sunnyside Yards.”

The proposal drew opposition, including from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who told NY1 that “Sunnyside Yards, specifically, is problematic.”

De Blasio responded in an interview on NY1’s “Inside City Hall”: “You can’t have 200 acres available and all the pressures on affordability in this city and not do anything.”

Concerns about gentrification fueled resistance from local officials, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and then-City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer.

“It is almost impossible to see how the neighborhoods surrounding the yards wouldn’t be dramatically changed,” Van Bramer told NY1 in 2020.

The de Blasio administration ultimately commissioned a master plan for the site, released in March 2020 and led by the architectural firm Practice for Architecture and Urbanism.

“I do think the political winds have shifted,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, the firm’s founder and creative director.

Chakrabarti said Mamdani can build on the prior work.

“It’s technically incredibly complicated,” he said. “Starting from scratch is a disaster, because why would you lose all of that knowledge that was built up before? So to me, the fact that previous plans have been done is a good thing.”

Mamdani has cited a goal of 12,000 affordable housing units, matching the 2020 master plan, and is seeking about $21 billion in federal funding.

“I think the mayor, just by starting this conversation again, is kind of bringing energy and focus to this issue,” Wright said. “But I think that nobody should fool themselves and think that this is going to be easy or quick or cheap or anything, because it’s none of those.”

Mamdani acknowledged the challenges.

“This is a long-standing project that will also require a long-standing commitment,” he told reporters Friday, “and we’re just at the very beginning of it.”

[NYguy]

Had forgotten about some of this stuff...


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