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The long-awaited deal to transform the iconic Elmhurst gas tanks site into a brand new 6.5-acre park was finally sealed when Keyspan President and CEO Robert Catell handed the site’s deed over to Mayor Michael Bloomberg last Friday, nearly two years after the initial transaction of a mere dollar bill from Bloomberg’s hand to Catell’s.

“This means that we can go ahead with planning and building a new public park for the people of Elmhurst,” Bloomberg said as a group of community members at the former Elmhurst gas tanks site began cheering and applauding.

Elmhurst residents and members of the Juniper Park Civic Association were glad to hear the legal documents had been completed and cleanups monitored by the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination had been finished, deeming the site, bounded by 57th Avenue, Grand Avenue, 80th Street and the Long Island Expressway, allowable for public use.

Bloomberg said he expects construction to begin transforming the rubble-ridden site into a passive park with plush greenery in about 12 to 18 months, after the Parks Department proposes a design. Bloomberg added that the city has committed $20 million in capital funds over the next three years to create the new park, and citywide the Parks Department is investing $1.38 billion over the next two fiscal years, the largest sum ever invested in city parks.

“Some of us remember the days when giant metal gas tanks cast a shadow over this site, those tanks were something of a landmark, and for the better part of last century Brooklyn Union Gas Company sent gas from these tanks to homes business and industries throughout Brooklyn and Queens,” Catell said of the site’s evolving history.

“But one thing that has not changed is the need for more park lands here in Queens,” Catell said. “Parks are the green compliment to concrete commercial streets.”

“We love it when we get another park in Queens and getting one in this area has been a major issue for us,” said Margaret Magnus, a member of both JPCA and Community Board 5.

Magnus and other members of Community Boards 4 and 5 will meet over the next few months with the Parks Department to design proposals and what would best suit the community Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe said.

“It’s not very often that you get to start a six-acre park from scratch in a busy neighborhood,” Benepe said. The park that may turn out to be a little bigger than Madison Square Park in Manhattan, and the city’s biggest new park since the 1930’s.

Madison Square Park is located between 23rd and 26th Streets and between Madison and Fifth Avenues, and has a reflecting pool, fountain, a dog run and is mostly just covered in grass.

Though the borough of Queens is generally well served by parkland, the Elmhurst site lies in an area that currently lacks open-space amenities and Community District 4 is the most densely populated area of Queens, said Bloomberg.

“This new park is very important to Elmhurst. The population of this part of Queens has grown by roughly 25 percent since 1980,” Bloomberg said. “And now by creating this park we are going to make this an even more attractive community in which to live and insure that the best days for Elmhurst and all new Yorkers are still to come.