A Queens railyard could become a new city, if Trump says yes
Sunnyside Yards: The Plan That Could Reshape Queens
In a city perpetually starved for land and affordable housing, the Sunnyside Yards represent something rare: a vast, underused expanse of urban real estate in the middle of one of the most densely populated counties on earth. The 180-acre rail facility in western Queens has been theorized as a development site for more than 60 years. Mayor Zohran Mamdani is the latest, and perhaps most audacious, champion of building on it. On February 26, 2026, he took the proposal directly to President Donald Trump.
The Vision: 12,000 Homes on a Rail Deck
Mamdani’s plan calls for constructing a massive deck over the existing Amtrak and MTA rail lines, then building a new neighborhood on top of it. The proposed development would include more than 12,000 apartments, at least half of which would be designated as affordable housing. If realized, it would be the largest single housing development New York City has seen since 1973, when the city built Co-op City and a series of large cooperative housing complexes that provided tens of thousands of affordable units. The rail deck itself would be a significant engineering undertaking. Mamdani described it as potentially the largest such structure in the world, and the infrastructure alone would require years of planning and construction before a single residential unit could be built.
The Federal Money Problem
The project’s fundamental challenge is the same one that has stymied it under every previous mayor: it requires approximately $21 billion in federal grants. That is not money the city has. It is not money the state can provide. It requires a commitment from the federal government, which is why Mamdani traveled to Washington and sat down with Trump. The president reportedly expressed interest in the idea. What that interest translates to in terms of actual federal appropriations remains entirely unclear. The political dynamics are complicated: the federal government under Trump has generally moved to reduce, not expand, urban development subsidies, and the ideological gap between a democratic socialist mayor and a populist Republican president is considerable. But Mamdani is betting that housing resonates across partisan lines in ways that other progressive priorities do not, and that Trump’s identity as a real estate developer gives him a particular interest in big, bold building projects.
The Players Who Must Cooperate
Even if federal money materialized, the Sunnyside Yards project would require coordination among an unusually complex set of stakeholders. Amtrak has operational interests in the yards and has historically been resistant to development plans that could interfere with its infrastructure. The MTA similarly controls key portions of the rail corridor. The city, the state, the federal government, and both major rail agencies would all need to reach agreement before ground could be broken. Queens State Sen. Michael Gianaris noted that this complexity is precisely why the project has never moved forward despite decades of interest. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. expressed enthusiasm for the project and added a creative element to the vision: he proposed including a new arena for the New York Liberty, the WNBA team, as part of the development.
The Timeline
Urban planning experts who reviewed the proposal told NBC New York that even under the most optimistic scenario, construction on the rail deck would not begin for four years. Full completion of the development would likely extend to 2040 or beyond. That is a 15-year horizon that spans multiple mayoral administrations and presidential terms. It is also a timeline that underscores the scale of the commitment being asked of federal and state partners. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development administers the federal grant programs that would fund large-scale urban development projects of this kind. The MTA’s real estate office manages the agency’s property interests, including in rail yards. For New York City’s housing advocates, Sunnyside Yards represents both an enormous opportunity and a familiar cycle of hope and disappointment. This time, the stakes and the political moment may be different.
