It’s Flushing Meadows Corona Park’s turn now

# Overview

# What's wrong now

# Cost and comparisons Benepe estimates at least $1 billion would be needed to rebuild and climate-proof Flushing Meadows. He compares that number to recent large New York park investments:

• Hudson River Park (550 acres) has cost about $1 billion to date.

• Brooklyn Bridge Park (85 acres) cost about $600 million, according to its managing nonprofit.

Flushing Meadows is far larger than those projects, so a major investment would be substantial, but not out of line with recent public spending on parks.

# Funding proposals Benepe offers practical funding ideas rather than purely aspirational goals. He recommends directing a share of revenue generated at Flushing Meadows back into park maintenance and capital work. That could include surcharges tied to large events such as the Governors Ball music festival. Governors Ball organizers currently provide about $90,000 annually on a voluntary basis to the local Alliance, while ticket prices for the festival range widely.

He also suggests reallocating concession and operations revenues that now go into the city's general budget and instead funneling them to the Department of Parks and Recreation. Benepe estimates that change could yield roughly $60 million more in the parks budget — about a 10 percent increase.

# Political opening Benepe argues the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor creates a political opportunity to prioritize Queens. He believes a mayor with borough roots could treat investment in Flushing Meadows as a correction of decades of inequitable funding compared with parks in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island.

# Local voices and capacity Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. and the Alliance for Flushing Meadows Corona Park have called attention to the backlog of deferred maintenance. The Alliance exists to help maintain and improve the park but lacks the wealthy donor base that supports conservancies like Central Park and Prospect Park. That difference affects how much private funding the park can attract and how projects are financed.

# What comes next Benepe frames the problem as fixable if political will, targeted revenue-sharing and a sizable capital commitment are combined. Local officials have been raising alarms about the park's condition. The next steps that emerge publicly will depend on city-level decisions about revenue allocation, event-surcharge policies and whether the new administration embraces a major rebuilding plan for Flushing Meadows.