As NYC unveils new Willets Point redevelopment, auto repair shop owners gear up for another fight

Arturo Olaya, 64, knows all about New York City’s redevelopment dreams for Willets Point.

An auto upholsterer who immigrated to Queens when he was 23, he has worked within the area’s steel maze of auto body repair shops and recycling dealers for nearly three decades. He fought redevelopment efforts against two mayors — Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio — going back to 2007, speaking out at community board meetings and in the press.

On hearing about the city’s latest plans to build a 25,000-seat soccer stadium and hotel in his neighborhood, Olaya, who leads a coalition of Willets Points business owners, had a message for Mayor Eric Adams.

Hear Mayor Eric Adams discuss plans for a soccer stadium on WNYC:

“If they want to take this land … we, the working people, need respect,” he said.

“They need to give us a relocation,” he added.

In addition to the soccer stadium and a hotel, the redevelopment that includes city-owned land is expected to include 2,500 units of affordable housing — 1,100 of which were planned under de Blasio – making it one of the largest affordable housing projects the city has seen in some time. The $780 million stadium is slated to be home to the New York City Football Club, which for the last decade had been playing its home games at Yankee Stadium. Related Companies, the developer of Hudson Yards and Sterling Equities, are behind the affordable housing project.

City officials and those involved in the project made a splashy announcement at the Queens Museum on Wednesday, where scores of soccer fans attended along with union construction workers. City officials said the redevelopment would create over 14,000 jobs.

But as Adams embarks on the long-stalled effort to transform the neighborhood around Citi Field, he is poised to face the same opponents as his predecessors did: a group of mostly immigrant auto mechanics who work on an industrial neighborhood known to locals as the “Iron Triangle.”

Over the years, their numbers have dwindled due to the uncertainty as well as the city’s efforts to negotiate relocations for the shop owners, most recently to a facility in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx as part of a nearly $7 million settlement agreement. A large chunk of the vacant land where the city is planning to build the stadium is now owned by the city.

But not everyone took the deal. The mayor’s office has said roughly a dozen businesses remain in the Iron Triangle, but Olaya and another mechanic, Javier Tomala, said the number was far higher.

According to the two men, over 90 small business owners continue to work in the area, many of them as tenants. In 2005, there were over 200 businesses employing between 1,400 to 1,800 people, according to a study by Hunter College.

Olaya accused the de Blasio administration of having “tricked” the owners, pointing to how many were ultimately evicted after struggling to survive in a location that was far flung from their customers.

But even so, Olaya said he was prepared to move on.

“The point is now we have a new administration,” he said. “We have a good mayor. We want to talk with the mayor about what his solution is for us.”

These days, Olaya runs his business out of a van parked in the Iron Triangle. At the start of the pandemic, he helped outfit taxis with plastic partitions intended to prevent virus spread.

During an interview on WNYC hours after the announcement, Adams said that he plans to perform a walkthrough of the area along with City Councilmember Francisco Moya, who represents the neighborhood and was among those who has lobbied for a soccer stadium. Moya’s support is critical for the plan to pass the City Council, the penultimate step of the city’s lengthy land use approval process. Final approval rests with the mayor.

“I love speaking to New Yorkers on the ground,” he said.

But he also pointed to the city’s previous settlement agreement.

“They’re going to be some — a small number of people — who believe it could've been done differently,” he said. “We understand that and we respect that and we want to find a place [where] they’re whole.”