{"id":233265,"date":"2026-05-15T22:57:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T22:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/233265\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T22:57:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T22:57:47","slug":"metropolitan-park-casino-construction-running-months-behind-schedule-queens-daily-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/233265\/","title":{"rendered":"Metropolitan Park casino construction running months behind schedule \u2014 Queens Daily Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">By Jacob Kaye<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Steve Cohen\u2019s New York Mets are off to a slow start this season \u2013 and so is his $8 billion casino project, which is already more than five months behind schedule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Metropolitan Park, the casino and entertainment complex backed by Cohen and Hard Rock, is running around five and a half months behind schedule before construction has even begun, <a href=\"https:\/\/nycasinos.ny.gov\/system\/files\/documents\/2025\/07\/evalecon5.hardrock.constructiontimeline.redacted.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according to a construction timeline its developers submitted to the New York State Gaming Commission last year.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The project\u2019s backers expected on Jan. 1 to begin testing the foundation of the parking lot that will one day sit beneath the 3.7-million-square-foot development. But the construction work, known as test piling, had yet to begin as of mid-May. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">With the hold up in the test piling, construction of the casino, which was expected to begin on April 1, is also delayed.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">But while major construction work has yet to begin, workers at the site haven\u2019t been completely idle. <a href=\"https:\/\/queenseagle.com\/all\/2026\/2\/25\/construction-prep-underway-for-8-billion-metropolitan-park-casino-in-queens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Pre-construction work<\/a>, which includes breaking up some existing curbs, clearing Citi Field\u2019s parking lot, identifying utilities underground, fencing off the site, and obtaining permits and contracts, began earlier this year and is mostly complete, according to Karl Rickett, Metropolitan Park\u2019s spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">According to Rickett, the early delays will not affect the developers\u2019 plan to open the casino and entertainment hub by 2030. While the spokesperson did not identify what month construction of the casino is expected to be completed, documents submitted to the Gaming Commission say the construction of the casino, a food hall, open space areas, and improvements to the Mets-Willets Point 7 train station will conclude by June 1, 2030. A pair of parking garages that developers planned to begin test piling for in January and begin construction of on April 1 are expected to be completed by November 2027 and April 2028, respectively, according to Gaming Commission documents. Test piling on one of those garages recently began.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cMetropolitan Park is well underway,\u201d Rickett said in a statement. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye Steve Cohen\u2019s New York Mets are off to a slow start this season \u2013 and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-233265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}