New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, and New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) President and CEO Andrew Kimble today announced that New York City has committed more than $1 billion to a major reconstruction of the Coney Island shoreline, fulfilling Mayor Adams’ vision laid out earlier this year in his 2025 State of the City Address. This vision includes reconstruction of the historic Riegelmann Boardwalk; 1,500 new homes, including 25 percent of units allocated for affordable housing; and new investments in streets, sewers, and public realm improvements, including a $42 million renovation of the Abe Stark Sports Center.
“Coney Island is home to thousands of hard-working New Yorkers who work hard every day to leave behind something better for their families. Life here shouldn’t be a rollercoaster, which is why our administration is committing $1 billion to rejuvenate America’s playground and build a better Coney Island,” said Mayor Adams. “With this investment, we are going to deliver 1,500 new mixed income homes to the waterfront — 25 percent of which will be affordable — and restore the over 100-year-old Riegelmann Boardwalk to its former glory. We’re building new streets and sewers, improving the public realm, and renovating the Abe Stark Sports Center so this beloved rink and recreation hub can continue bringing joy to New Yorkers and visitors alike. To be the best city on the globe to live and raise a family, you need affordable homes and public spaces, and that’s why today's announcement is a transformative next step in building the neighborhoods of tomorrow — today.”
“Coney Island is a New York icon that gives millions of New Yorkers and visitors a welcoming, vibrant space to enjoy the waves, fresh air, and world-famous attractions. With this major investment in the boardwalk’s resiliency, we’re preparing the boardwalk to safely welcome visitors for another 100 years,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Rodriguez-Rosa. “As climate change continues to cause more extreme weather events and rising sea levels, we’re investing in our public spaces across the city to ensure resiliency while enhancing what New Yorkers love about them. By reconstructing the entire historic boardwalk and renovating the beloved Abe Stark Sports Center, we’re also making Coney Island a safer and more welcoming place for families and New Yorkers of all ages. I’m grateful to our partners across the Adams administration and in the community for their commitment to this project, and I’m proud to be part of an administration that appreciates how critical our public greenspaces are as living infrastructure.”
“Today’s $1 billion commitment to rebuild the historic Riegelmann Boardwalk is exactly the kind of investment Coney Island deserves — making the boardwalk safer, more accessible, and more resilient for generations to come,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) President and CEO Andrew Kimball. “This builds on NYCEDC’s broader work across Coney Island: advancing new housing, modernizing streets and sewers, and delivering public‑realm upgrades, including the renovation of the Abe Stark Sports Center. We’re proud to partner with our NYC Parks and city colleagues to strengthen this beloved neighborhood, support local small businesses, and keep Coney Island a place where New Yorkers come together year‑round.”
Reimagining the Iconic Coney Island Boardwalk
The boardwalk restoration project will upgrade all 2.7 miles of Riegelmann Boardwalk across several phases of work, maximizing access to this public amenity while making vital improvements. NYC Parks will partner with the New York City Economic Development Corporation to implement the project and will conduct extensive public outreach during the design and construction stages. NYC Parks conducted an extensive study to reconfiguring the boardwalk to address future climate change needs while preserving the landmark’s character and maintaining direct access to the adjacent businesses and attractions. In addition to upgrading the resiliency and accessibility of the boardwalk itself, this project will include improvements to the boardwalk’s public facilities, including restrooms, lifeguard stations, and shade pavilions.
Redeveloping the Abe Stark Sports Center
The city is also reconstructing the Abe Stark Sports Center, a local hub for recreation with a beloved ice-skating rink that opened in 1970, through a separate $42 million project. The renovation will upgrade the ice-skating facilities and create a new entrance and signage on the boardwalk, better linking the center with the community.
Delivering More Affordable Housing
Today’s announcement follows Mayor Adams’ commitment to reinvigorate Coney Island and its commitment to build affordable housing. The Adams administration previously announced the selection of a developer to build housing in Coney Island West. This project will convert an 80,000-square-foot city-owned surface public parking lot into over 500 units of mixed-income housing, 25 percent of which will be affordable. Additionally, the development will provide ground-floor retail space and will replace existing public surface parking with new public structured parking. This project — in combination with other peninsula-wide flood resiliency measures — will help protect Coney Island from future flood risk.
The Adams administration also supports Intro. 1427 to establish a Business Improvement District (BID) in Coney Island and bring together businesses, community leaders, and other New Yorkers around a safer, cleaner, more vibrant neighborhood.
Since entering office, Mayor Adams has made historic investments to create more affordable housing and ensure more New Yorkers have a place to call home. Earlier this year, Mayor Adams announced that his administration has created, preserved, or planned approximately 426,800 homes for New Yorkers through its work through the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. Mayor Adams also announced that, in FY 2025, the Adams administration created the most affordable rental units in city history and celebrated back-to-back-to-back record-breaking years for producing permanently-affordable homes for formerly-homeless New Yorkers, placing homeless New Yorkers into housing, and connecting New Yorkers to housing through the city’s housing lottery. Thanks to the Adams administration’s recently-
In addition to creating and preserving record amounts of affordable and market-rate housing for New Yorkers, the Adams administration has also passed ambitious plans that will create tens of thousands of new homes as well. Last December, Mayor Adams celebrated the passage of “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing proposal in city history that will build 80,000 new homes over 15 years and invest $5 billion in critical infrastructure updates and housing.
The Adams administration is also advancing several robust neighborhood plans that, if adopted, would deliver nearly 50,000 homes over the next 15 years to New York neighborhoods. In addition to the Bronx-Metro North Station Area Plan, the Midtown South plan, and the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, and the Jamaica Neighborhood Plan — all of which have already been passed by the New York City Council — the Adams administration is also advancing plans in Long Island City in Queens.
Building on the success of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, Mayor Adams unveiled his “City of Yes for Families” strategy earlier this year in his State of the City address to build more homes and create more family-friendly neighborhoods across New York City. Under City of Yes for Families, the Adams administration is advancing more housing on city-owned sites, creating new tools to support homeownership, and building more housing alongside schools, playgrounds, grocery stores, accessible transit stations, and libraries.
Further, the Adams administration is actively working to strengthen tenant protections and support homeowners. The “Partners in Preservation” program was expanded citywide in 2024 through a $24 million investment in local organizations to support tenant organizing and combat harassment in rent-regulated housing. The Homeowner Help Desk, a trusted one-stop shop for low-income homeowners to receive financial and legal counseling from local organizations, was also expanded citywide in 2024 with a $13 million funding commitment.
Finally, Mayor Adams and members of his administration successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York State budget that are already helping spur the creation of urgently needed housing. These tools include a new tax incentive for multifamily rental construction, a tax incentive program to encourage office conversions to create more affordable units, lifting the arbitrary “floor-to-area ratio” cap that held back affordable housing production in certain high-demand areas of the city, and the ability to create a pilot program to legalize and make safe basement apartments.
