OuterB on Queens Real Estate

Bed, Bath and Beyond, Home Depot, and Target are just a few of the big box retailers heading for Flushing’s massive development, SkyView Park (formerly Flushing Town Center). With an 800,000-square-foot retail center, 1,100 condominium units and parking for 2,500 vehicles, the developers are looking at this to be a true “destination” in Queens.

SkyView Park will be located at College Point Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, and it will be a mixed-use building with retail on the ground and housing (condos) above, reaching 22 floors. Because of the high demand for parking, included in the development will be an eight-level parking deck, scheduled to open in March 2008. Retail will follow in two phases: mid-2008 and mid-2009. Six residential buildings, which will be located above the parking garage, will also open in phases, the first three opening in summer of 2009. Units will be priced from $500K to $2 million, for studios the three-bedrooms, targeted toward “upscale, middle-income and multi-ethnic,” according to the developer.

This land used to be owned by Con-Ed, and was classified as a brownfield. Let’s hope that the planned extensive testing and subsequent remediation of toxic areas was completed.

SkyView Park
College Point Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, Queens
(coming soon!)
Related:
Big retailers coming to Flushing [The Real Deal]
Flush with Potential [Muss Development Corporation]
The Flushing Dream [previously on OuterB]

The F & R Holding Co. building at 23-23 Borden Avenue in Long Island City recently sold for $6 million.  They owned the building for over 50 years and at one point made envelopes there.  Peter Moreo of Greiner-Maltz, who represented the seller, said “It is about six blocks away from the [Long Island City] redevelopment area, and would have sold for double if it had been on other side of Vernon Blvd“, according to the NY Daily News.  Location really makes a difference at this point in the culture of development in LIC.  For more of a reference, this building is across from Fresh Direct.

Apparently the buyer had to purchase it with no environmental study, so that in part made it a difficult building to sell.  This tidbit makes me feel a little uneasy.  Currently, Housing Works, a nonprofit, has their warehouse there, and the building is also occupied by a garment sewing company and a bakery.  I wonder what’s going to happy to the tenants and the to building, now that it’s sold?

• LIC’s 6 million dollar border [NY Daily News]

As you may know, the original Carvel in Westchester is going to be torn down. Gothamist alerts us that there are still some of the old Carvels left in the Outer Boroughs, including one made of actual painted wood, in Ridgewood (56-12 Metropolitan Avenue). According to the lady behind the counter, they’ve been there for 45 years (she thinks). I wonder how long it will continue being a Carvel. Will they landmark the building? Only time will tell.

Suddenly, I have a hankering for some Fudgy the Whale.

Related:
Flying Saucers (not) Over (in) Queens [Gothamist]
Original Carvel Ice Cream Store to Close [Serious Eats]

Photo credit: Gothamist

Nespresso USA - a division of Nestle - is moving to LIC.  They’ll be occupying the entire 12th floor (there are 17 in all) of Court Square Place, that newly completed blue glass building a block from the Citibank Tower (near the ugly, grey, jail-like looking building).  In a GlobeSt.com article, Greg Smith, JRT Realty’s executive vice president, gushes about how awesome this move is for them:

“The Court Square Place tower offers commanding views of Manhattan, high-tech office space companies’ need, and amenities employees seek… Nespresso was attracted to this space because it is Long Island City’s newest building, it’s a class A product, it’s a trophy building with large open floors and unobstructed views of Manhattan… The price is a third the cost of Midtown.”

Court Square Tower is located at 24-01 44th Rd. You can see it peeking out while you’re on the platform at QueensBorough Plaza.

(thanks to QueensWest for the tip!)

Related:
Nespresso USA Leases 15,380 SF [GlobeSt.com]

Business owners in Willets Point continue to be unhappy with the way the city is approaching the area with regard to developing it. Late in June, the city’s Economic Development Corporation formally requested the services of condemnation attorneys to help them forge ahead with the development process. The Willets Point business owners are pissed.

So, basically, the acquisition process has started, and eminent domain is on the table, as these attorneys have been asked to deal with property valuation and eminent domain litigation. One business owner, Jake Bono of Bono Sawdust Supply Company (they’ve been at Willets Point for 74 years), objects to what he considers to be an unethical process. He compares the use of eminent domain in Willets Point to what went on at the Atlantic Yards. This does not surprise me.

Bill Walsh, a senior project manager with the EDC, says the city will listen to the business owners. But I don’t think they’re really going to - actually, they’ll probably listen, but just go about their original plans.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

Related:
Biz owners worry as city requests condemnation help for Willets Pt. [Times Ledger]
OuterB’s Willets Point archive [previously on OuterB]

Photo Credit: Satan’s Laundromat

The new mall going up in Rego Park will have a residential component to it. This is news to me. Apparently Vornado is ripping up the old Alexander’s parking lot and putting in a 40 unit (or is it 400? Queens Tribune says 400, hmm…) residential building complete with a 2,500 square foot community room (you can thank Helen Sears for the community room). The Tribune reports that there will be “a 1,400 car parking garage, a covered pedestrian galleria, a community facility and a landscaped public area to serve as an entryway to the existing Lost Battalion Hall park.”

More commentary from the Times Ledger article:

Steven Roth, chief executive officer of Vornado Realty Trust, which is developing the site, predicted the $550 million mixed retail and residential project would be “an architectural landmark” and said he hoped that “people won’t just come here to buy a new suit and a power saw, even though we want them to buy a new suit and a power saw.”

Hard to imagine this becoming an architectural landmark. Unless they have a truly hot architect working on this. I’ll believe it when I see it. I also find that power saw comment to be so odd. Sounds like some kind of weird passive kind of marketing.

Related:
Work starts at Rego Pk. for mall site [Times Ledger]
Retail, Towers Grow In Lieu Of Wal-Mart [Queens Tribune]
New Queens Mall Without the Crap of Walmart [previously on OuterB]

Walmart would have been the anchor store of Rego Park II, a 10 acre complex expected to be completed in 2009. Vornado wanted to keep the identity of the anchor store under wraps until their approvals were completed. However, New Yorkers found out, and the Unions, residents, and the City Council all opposed the Walmart element and successfully got Vornado to eliminate it from their development plans. Walmart, of course, is known for its problematic labor practices, among other things.

It’s taken time for the developers to get going on the groundbreaking. Construction began yesterday on this huge mall. Big box stores like Home Depot and Kohls will take up residence there, along with popular discount department store Century 21.

Related:
Building Begins on Giant Queens Mall [NY Sun]
Vornado Realty Trust tried to keep identity of anchor store in Rego Park II [Retail Traffic]
Vornado Ended Plans for Rego Park Wal-Mart [theboxtank]

OuterB is happy to announce a new writer starts dishing on real estate in our fair borough early next week. I hope you’ll check back and wish her god-speed.

In the meantime, here’s a nugget on Queens Crossing, just one of the new higher-end commercial real estate projects going up in downtown Flushing:

The developer of the mixed-use Queens Crossing, currently under construction, likes the building so much that he is moving his company there, taking over the entire top 12th floor.

“Businesses will be trickling in by late spring, but everyone will be in by the end of the year,” said Michael Meyer, president of TDC Development Corp., which is building the 120,000-square-foot building on Main and 138th streets, between 38th and 39th avenues in downtown Flushing.

The developer moving in? Does that actually bode well? At least they nixed the idea of a food court in the building, going for an “upscale restaurant from Asia.”

One more word on the developing Flushing scene: Deluge. It’s the new restaurant — non-Asian upscale, more Manhattan bistro — in the downtown Sheraton, and won honors at the recent Taste of the World. If Deluge floats in Flushing, it’ll add a little to the momentum moving the area from thriving Chinatown to Queens linchpin.

• Developer Will Move Into Queens Crossing [Chronicle]

• Muss Taps Onex as Partner in $1B Flushing Deal [Commercial Property News]
• A Man’s Beach Bungalow Is His Castle, Under Siege by Developers [NY Times]
• The Train to the Plane [NY Times]
• Whitestone Residents Protest City’s Plan To Widen 20th Avenue [NY 1]
• Verizon Is Rewiring New York, Block by Block, in a Race for Survival [NY Times]
• Immigrants Swell Numbers Near New York [NY Times]

• Blackout in Queens - The Second Week [About.com]
• New Queens Waterfront Park…On Newtown Creek [Curbed]
• Bargains in middle-class Maspeth [Real Deal]
• With Scenic Homes and a Rich Heritage, Addisleigh Park Is Thriving [NY Sun]
• Demolishing a Celebrated Wall of Glass at JFK [NY Times]
• Finding the Funds for a 17th-Century Fixer-Upper - Flushing [NY Times]
• Shooting Up - The city’s best huajiao fix found—where else?—in Flushing [Village Voice]
• To the Battlements, and Take Sunscreen: The Joys of Fort Tilden [NY Times]
• Eviction fears in Hollis [Daily News]
• In This Chinatown, Chinese Is Just a Start - Flushing [NY Times]