http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/re...06posting.html
A Developer Aims High in Long Island City
[size=1]A rendering of TF Cornerstone’s East Coast project.
46-15 Center Boulevard is to be completed in 2012.
By ALISON GREGOR
February 4, 2011
Quote:
EVEN in a sluggish market, property developers are continuing to bet on Long Island City’s transformation from towering smokestacks to residential towers.
Last August TF Cornerstone, one of the city’s most prolific builders, broke ground on a 41-story tower at 46-15 Center Boulevard that is to have 367 rental apartments when finished in April 2012. In December at 45-40 Center, the developer poured the foundation for a 32-story high-rise that will have 345 rental apartments, and in March it will begin a third tower, at 45-45 Center, with 806 rentals.
By 2013, along with those three towers, TF Cornerstone plans to have finished a fourth, with 586 apartments, at 46-10 Center, directly behind the huge Pepsi sign on the East River waterfront.
K. Thomas Elghanayan, the chairman of TF Cornerstone, said he wasn’t worried about going ahead with high-rise buildings in a city development market that remains largely stagnant.
“We know the market there,” Mr. Elghanayan said. “We’re able to get the financing, and no one else is building. I believe by the time we finish these four buildings, the whole community will be an established market, and we’ll do well.”
Long Island City’s formerly industrial waterfront, only a subway stop away from Manhattan, was designated by the city and state for cleanup and redevelopment in the early 1980s. A plan was adopted to create roads and infrastructure on 74 waterfront acres to support 11 residential towers, two schools, a park, and a library designed by the architect Steven Holl and his partner Chris McVoy.
The Queens West Development Corporation, a government agency, has been working with private developers, who lease the land they build upon, to achieve that plan.
There are now seven apartment towers in the area. Neighborhood amenities include parking garages, a new Duane Reade store and a supermarket called Food Cellar. A spa, a wine shop and more restaurants are opening or are planned. Vernon Boulevard is a thriving commercial strip with a new health food store and restaurants like Madera Cuban Grill and Steakhouse and Testaccio Ristorante.
The existing towers, the oldest of which is Citylights, built in 1997, have a total of about 2,600 apartments (not including a building with senior housing). The four new glass buildings — which, with two of the existing buildings, are part of what TF Cornerstone calls East Coast — will add about 2,100 apartments. New York City also has a plan to develop 5,000 apartments, about 60 percent of them for middle-income residents, on 30 of the 74 acres immediately to the south at Hunters Point South. TF Cornerstone has submitted a plan to participate in that development as well.
One-bedroom rentals in Long Island City’s waterfront area start at $2,000 a month, while two-bedrooms start at $2,400 to $2,500 a month, said Silvette Julian, a vice president and project director with the brokerage Nest Seekers International. Landlords in the area said they were optimistic that demand for apartments would continue, especially among renters priced out of Manhattan. Over the last decade, AvalonBay Communities built two rental towers, Avalon Riverview and Avalon Riverview North, and both have rented easily, said Frederick S. Harris, a senior vice president of AvalonBay.
“There hasn’t been a lot of competitive price pressure,” he said, meaning the company has not had to reduce rents.
A year ago, TF Cornerstone began testing the sales waters with condominiums at the View, a glass-clad terraced building that looks a bit like an Incan pyramid, at 46-30 Center Boulevard. The 185-unit building is more than half sold, with prices at $800 to $1,000 a square foot, Mr. Elghanayan said.
Among available units in mid-January, a one-bedroom was listed for $616,000; a two-bedroom for $840,000; and a three-bedroom for $995,000. Common charges on those units ranged from $546 to $981 a month.
Mr. Elghanayan said the View had mostly larger apartments, even some four-bedrooms, because the developers believe Long Island City’s waterfront is evolving into an attractive neighborhood for families.
A 662-seat school for kindergarten through eighth grade will be built by the New York City School Construction Authority adjacent to the rental building going up at 46-15 Center. The area already has one small school, Public School 78Q, for kindergarten through fifth grade.
The 10-acre Gantry Plaza State Park is being expanded, and the library design was recently approved by the Queens Library Board of Trustees.
Each building in the East Coast development has its own fitness room and amenities, but the 806-unit building will have a 1,000-car parking garage, along with an amenity center for all residents of East Coast buildings. On top of the parking garage will be a recreational area with a pool, tennis courts, beach volleyball courts and other outdoor amenities.
The recreational area will also have a large gym for which East Coast residents will pay a nominal membership fee to join, Mr. Elghanayan said. Those amenities should be available in early 2013.
“A lot of people don’t even know this development is here yet,” he said. “They have a vague idea of a Pepsi sign and seeing it as they cross the Queensboro Bridge. But once you get out here, it’s pretty spectacular.”
|
__________________
NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
|