Bronx community board members on Thursday will get to weigh in on Ferry Point Park’s $160 million makeover, which includes new playgrounds, landscaping, athletic fields and more. Bally’s Bronx will sit in the middle of the new-and-improved amenities, as part of a massive redevelopment of the area.

The park improvements are just one piece of the promises Bally’s has made to the surrounding community as it pursues a $4 billion casino development, alongside a golf course previously leased by the Trump Organization. Bally’s has since bought the property for more than $150 million, gaining control of the sprawling area.

The development represents a major change for a waterfront park that has served Bronx residents since the city acquired the land in 1937. While changes are afoot, the aptly named Ferry Point Park will remain a port for NYC Ferry.

Bronx Community Board 10 members, whose role is advisory, will weigh in on a face lift developed by landscaping company Hargreaves Jones. The plans were presented to the board’s parks committee last week, where a Hargreaves Jones representative said the plans were drawn from Bronx residents during a community engagement period.

Some community members have already raised concerns about a lack of public transit to the site from the Bronx and also about the mix of amenities.

The park would share its footprint with a gambling complex featuring a 3 million-square-foot resort, thousands of gaming machines and an event center that can hold 2,000 people. The project is billed as the largest private development in the borough’s history.

“This park belongs to the community, and residents helped shape the vision for its redesign from day one,” Jessenia Aponte, the NYC Parks Bronx borough commissioner, said in a statement. “Their vision is being reflected in our design, especially their wish for a safe, welcoming place to connect with family and neighbors and have fun.”

Bally’s Bronx is one of three downstate casinos that the New York State Gaming Commission licensed in December. Last summer, Bally’s issued a statement to investors warning them of potential financial problems and raising questions about the project’s viability.

The company has since received substantial financing. In a statement, Soo Kim, the chair of Bally’s board and the majority stakeholder, said the project remains on schedule.

The other two recently licensed casinos are both in Queens: Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Metropolitan Park near Citi Field, which is in the early phases of construction, and Resorts World, an existing casino at Aqueduct Racetrack, where an expansion is underway.

What’s in the cards

Hargreaves Jones’ design includes five different development sites – two facing the Throgs Neck neighborhood, and the others along the waterfront.

The inland development sites include the addition of tennis and pickle ball courts, sprucing up the existing basketball courts and baseball field, adding shaded lounging areas and new landscaping.

To make room for more open space, Hargreaves Jones proposes reducing an existing detention basin on the property to about a fifth of its current size.

Megan Esopenko, a landscape architect with the company who presented the proposal to the community board, said a detention basin is required because the property is on a flood plain, but is larger than it needs to be.

Some of the proposed improvements along the waterfront are less flashy, like raising the earth up to 10 feet so it’s above the flood line, Esopenko said.

Other improvements include three new soccer fields, the addition of a scenic overlook, paved walking trails along and around the East River, and a playground that includes a 20-foot slide, a splash pad and climbing structures.

Esopenko said she hopes her design “becomes a destination park.”

Community concerns

One committee member last week raised concerns about the lack of public transit access from other areas of the Bronx to the park.

The nearest bus stop is nearly a 30-minute walk from the park, and there is no nearby train stop. In 2023, Bally’s announced a shuttle service that picks up passengers from various points in the neighborhood to the ferry landing, which committee members said may address the transit concerns.

Esopenko said that public transit to the park was outside of the scope of the landscaping company, as did representatives from the parks department.

Lucas Bejarano, an MTA spokesperson, said in response, “it is premature to evaluate demand for transportation to a facility that has yet to be built.”

Ozzie Yon, a liaison from the community group Friends of Ferry Point Park, said he would like to see the addition of a baseball field, which could act as a home field for nearby Herbert H. Lehman High School, which currently has none.

The lack of nearby home fields is taxing to students and their families, Yon said.

Baseball, he said, is more important to the community than soccer.

“Honestly, three soccer fields in this area is ridiculous,” Yon said at the community board meeting. “Very few people in this area utilize soccer fields.”

Esopenko and representatives from the parks department said that adding a new field would be a drastic change that would be too late in the process to accommodate.

Katerine Borrome, director of NYC Parks Bronx Borough Commissioners Office, said she wished this guidance could have come sooner in the process.

A Parks Department spokesperson said that they plan to move forward with the single baseball field currently proposed as the project is nearing the end of the design phase.

The community board will vote on whether it will provide a letter of support for the design. The city’s public design commission is also reviewing the proposal.

The next phase of the process includes developing contracts for the project, which will include drawings and additional specifics, the Parks Department said.

Esopenko said the park improvement project will not break ground until 2028.