Wildflower breaks ground on 38-stall JFK Park fast-charging hub in Queens

Wildflower Ltd and the New York City Economic Development Corporation broke ground on JFK Park, a 2.6-acre electric vehicle fast-charging site immediately adjacent to JFK Airport, the two announced on September 9, 2026. The hub is to open with 38 direct-current fast chargers operating 24 hours a day, each stall rated up to 400 kW and fitted with both NACS and CCS cables, with completion anticipated in late fall 2027. Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging will operate it, per the release, which calls the project one of the largest publicly accessible EV fast-charging stations in New York City and says the site has been designed with electrical capacity to add stalls as demand grows. No construction cost is given.

The specification has moved since the project was first announced. When NYCEDC selected Wildflower on March 20, 2024, the development was to include an initial 65 EV-ready charging stations, including 12 rapid charging stations, with construction anticipated to complete in 2025, an initial estimate of 1,000 vehicles charged per year, and a focus on the electric truck market as it matures; the city's Green Economy Action Plan, dated May 31, 2024, carried the same 65-and-12 figures as a marquee initiative. When the land sale closed on December 23, 2025, the count was still 65 EV-ready stations with at least 12 rapid ones, and groundbreaking was expected in 2026. The September 2026 release describes 38 DC fast chargers at launch and does not mention the 65 figure or the 1,000-vehicle estimate. The truck focus is gone as well: the 2024 release's subhead said the site "can Scale Up Over Time for Electric Trucks" and its body put the "focus on the electric truck market as it matures," the December 2025 subhead said the site was "Designed to Grow with Demand and Support Electric Trucks," and the 2026 release carries neither, its only use of the word being Assembly Member Khaleel Anderson's quoted line about "less air pollution from gas powered trucks and passenger vehicles." In NYCEDC's own narration, the 2024 and 2025 releases called the project the largest public EV charging station in the city and the 2026 release says "one of the largest" public fast-charging stations; the old superlative survives in the 2026 release only inside a quote from Queens Community Board 13 District Manager Mark McMillan. Thirty-eight 400 kW stalls is a different machine from 65 EV-ready stations of which 12 were to be rapid, and a later one.

The operator brings a network to the airport. Madeline Ebert, identified in the NYCEDC release as Mercedes-Benz Charging's head of product, is quoted there on "the Mercedes-Benz Charging Network" and pitches the site to "local residents and rideshare drivers." Mercedes-Benz USA's 2023 launch release for that network described its operator, Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, as a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and MN8 Energy, the developer whose West Virginia solar-and-storage deal with Google is covered in Google to buy from 86 MW solar and zinc storage project in West Virginia, with a commitment of over $1 billion to deliver 2,500 chargers within at least 400 hubs across North America by the end of the decade, open to drivers of all EV brands.

That last audience is where city policy meets the site. The Taxi and Limousine Commission's Green Rides initiative requires that a rising share of high-volume for-hire trips, meaning Uber and Lyft, be made in zero-emission or wheelchair-accessible vehicles: 5 percent in 2024, 15 percent in 2025, 25 percent in 2026, 40 percent in 2027, then 20 percentage points a year to 100 percent by 2030, per the TLC's page. A 24-hour fast-charging lot with direct access to the Van Wyck Expressway and Belt Parkway, as the release describes the site, sits where that fleet drives; Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su's quote names "rideshare drivers, delivery workers, and commercial fleets" as the corridor's daily users. Wildflower's own framing, on its EV charging page, is that in a city where 69 percent of households rent, public charging access is crucial.

The release says the development includes commitments to advance minority- and women-owned business participation and support local workforce engagement; at the December closing, NYCEDC said Wildflower had committed to a 30 percent M/WBE outreach goal with Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. Richards's quote in the groundbreaking release refers to "today's opening"; the body of the same release says construction is now underway.

Outlook

If the late-fall-2027 completion holds, JFK Park opens in the year the Green Rides benchmark steps from 25 percent to 40 percent of high-volume trips, on the TLC's schedule toward 100 percent by 2030. The release's "capacity to expand" language suggests the site could grow past 38 stalls, but the truck focus of the 2024 and 2025 releases is absent from the 2026 one, which names no expansion count or date and gives no cost for the project.