OuterB on Queens Real Estate

Recently I was contacted by WPIRA - the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association - about their upcoming fight.  They will testify before the New York City Council’s Land Use and Economic Development Committees on November 29.  As you may be aware, the area, known as the Iron Triangle, is at risk to be claimed by the city via creepy eminent domain.

More from their press release (.pdf):

A group of land/business owners from Willets Point are gearing up for a battle with the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) at the final City Council oversight hearing on November 29, 2007, before the city files a Uniformed Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) that would allow the use of eminent domain to condemn and take private properties in Willets Point and sell the land to a developer for a sizeable profit. The commercial and residential redevelopment project in Willets Point and is projected to cost upwards of $3 billion. This will be the City’s first Urban Renewal plan in close to 40 years.

At the November 29th hearing, WPIRA will question why the city has not considered the creation of an industrial business zone to accommodate the already profitable businesses in the area. While the city promises assistance with relocation, moving is simply not a viable option for most businesses that require M3-1 manufacturing zoning, which is quite scarce in all five boroughs. And for many of these businesses, their current location in Willets Point is essential for the daily operation of their business and the distribution and transportation of their products. Preliminary discussions have taken place, but the city has very little to offer the landowners.

WPIRA has produced a compelling 15 minute videotape profiling the business/landowners whose livelihoods would be placed in serious jeopardy if eminent domain was to be instituted by the city. Moreover, it would have a major adverse impact on the employees who work at these corporations. WPIRA seeks to enter the video as testimony during the November 29th hearing. To view the video, click here:
http://wpira.com/Behind%20the%20Curbline.htm

For interviews with members of the WPIRA contact Patricia Jones at 718-651-7187.

Related:
WPIRA

[website]
Willets Point on OuterB

Photo credit: Doug Letterman on Flickr

via a Creative Commons license

We’re not highlighting open houses this week - here’s hoping you’re spending time with loved ones and relaxing. But here are some interesting links for the weekend:

Some outlying neighborhoods face new condo oversupply [The Real Deal]

Great food will be coming to CitiField [Grub Street]

Great air should be coming to NYC by 2030 [Gotham Gazette]

Unaffordable Hunters Point? [NY Daily News]

A slideshow of a beautiful Jackson Heights co-op remodel. [Apartment Therapy]

Photo credit: hexadecimal

on Flickr via a Creative Commons license 

The Queens Tribune reports more rumblings coming from Willets Point - the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association is up to fight for their property and businesses. They object to the plan the city has to relocate everyone, citing that “there is not enough property in the city zoned for heavy industrial to accommodate all the [Willets Point] businesses.” According to Dan Feinstein of Feinstein Steel Works (and WPIRA member):

“They don’t have a final development plan, a developer – they don’t know how much it’s going to cost and they don’t know where they can move us.”

This is definitely a problem, to say the least.

Another thing to know is that the 10 businesses in WPIRA own 50 percent of acreage that makes up Willets Point. This is a significant level of ownership. A lot of the businesses in Willets point have been there for years, even two and three generations.

Form a long time - close to 30 years - WPIRA has been fighting to stay put. They’ve also been trying to get the city to improve the physical infrastructure. Currently the area is still not hooked up to the sewers (WTF?), the roads are badly damaged, and it’s pretty polluted there. Some wonder if this denial of basic services has been to keep the area lacking on purpose, and make it easier for eminent domain to be invoked, eventually. It’s intriguing to think about if/how the area would have flourished in other ways, had the city stepped in and brought the area up to speed years ago with the rest of Queens.

It’s important to also look to Flushing for indications of the future of Willets Point, as illustrated in a recent Times Ledger article. Earlier this month, John Liu spoke with members of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, saying that the lapse in progress towards the $500 million planned redevelopment of Municipal Lot 1 along with the RKO Keith site recently going up for sale, does not bode well for Willets Point. And Borough President Claire Shulman, who is a big booster for the Willets Point project, said that it’s essential to get it going while Bloomberg is in office - you never know if the next guy in office is going to nix plans from a previous administration. Additionally, his potential (rumored) presidential aspirations may also become an issue for the Willets Point redevelopment, according to John Liu.

Though, despite all the conjecture, the WPIRA is ready to defend their property and do what they can to stay put.

Related:
Willets Point Unites To Fight The City [Queens Tribune]
Flushing boom fades [Times Ledger]
Willets Point Industry and Realty Association [website]
OuterB’s Willets Point coverage

Photo credit: Doug Letterman on Flickr

Curbed has instituted a new comment system. Hooray! Hopefully this is discourage the four year olds and the ASCII middle finger dude from posting too much.

There’s a slow down in Flushing development. [Queens Courier]

Gertrude LaForgia is the new Project Manager for the Flushing/Willets Point/Corona Land Development Corporation, “an advocacy group for the proposed redevelopment of Willets Point”. [Queens Courier]

Elmhurst residents put the smack down on a proposed mixed-use development that would replace a former gas station, at a recent CB4 Land Use committee meeting. Problems cited are an expected increase in traffic, destroying the character of the community, new residents overwhelming the community, and the $1million cost for detoxing the site. [Times Ledger]

Why Renters Need Insurance . [NY Times]

Christine Forgione discovers a new-to-her park in Bayside - Linnaeus Park - and strongly recommends their ballfields get some sprucing up. [NY Houses for Sale]

The Rego Park Trader Joe’s supposedly opens October 28 or 29. [Queens Central]

Photo credit: Victoria Belanger on Flickr via a Creative Commons license

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has a number of brochures available on their website regarding development in Queens. They are very pretty and colorful, yet brief (8 pages - they are brochures, after all). In glorious PDF format, especially appropriate are the following:

Long Island City Overview

Long Island City Vision
Growing Retail Neighborhoods

The brochure, Major Economic Development Initiatives, also contains things pertinent to Queens. These brochures contain way too much information to outline here, but the basic message is: come to Queens, especially to our business-friendly areas of LIC and Flushing/Willets Point. At first glance I was a bit surprised that the Rockaways was one of the retail areas highlighted in the “Growing Retail Neighborhoods” brochure. Then I looked at the development they were talking about - Arverne by the Sea - and understood why that was included. That’s a huge mixed-use development that will create market-rate housing, retail space and a marina. It has the potential of greatly changing that area of Queens.

Related:
New York City Economic Development Corporation [website]
NYCEDC Brochure page
Arverne by the Sea development [website]
Change Comes to the Rockaways [previously on OuterB]

Willets Point is in the news again - this time it’s being talked about in connection to Flushing, to the east. This chunk of land may become the link between downtown Flushing and the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park/Citi Stadium area. Developers are salivating over its potential - last year the city’s Economic Development Corporation chose 10 finalists, but have not chosen the winner. Two names that pop out at me are Muss Development, the group building Sky View Park in Flushing, and Forest City Ratner, which, frankly, kind of makes my skin crawl.

One of the ways Willets Point and Flushing will be connected, is by a footbridge crossing nearby wetlands, according to The Real Deal. I like this idea - I’ll take a footbridge over an auto bridge - but some find its presence questionable. Tom Angotti, director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development (he also wrote last year’s study on Willets Point) says “It is a lengthy bridge that is not very inviting across wetlands. I would certainly want to see the numbers to convince me that there is real demand.”

Related:
As Flushing booms, Willets Point looms [The Real Deal]
Willets Point Iron Triangle Opinion Piece [previously on OuterB]

Photo Credit: Satan’s Laundromat

The New York Observer has a fascinating and engaging opinion piece about the Willets Point Iron Triangle section of Queens. Harry Siegel brings up a lot of familiar points - the toxicity of the land, the potential of eminent domain - but also connects the intent by the the city to create blight so that eminent domain can be invoked. I found this passage very interesting:

As things play out, the years of willful neglect from the city and attendant environmental abuses by the businesses based there may prove to be Willets Point’s best defense against this latest attempt at a hostile takeover. As Mr. Angotti has written: “Preliminary environmental surveys of the area have found a litany of problems. There are storage tanks underground, the soil is too soft to hold heavy loads, it’s on a flood plain, and building heights are constrained because of its proximity to LaGuardia Airport.”

Still, there’s no doubt the land’s value will skyrocket as soon as it’s connected to the sewer grid and the nexus of city services, or it’s known with certainty that it will be brought back onto the grid. Once that happens, it’s near certain the owners will sell or develop, and the businesses presently there will leave.

He also connects the new Citi Stadium with the redevelopment, not because of the more societal issues of making the area “fit in” with the stadium (gentrification), but because of a revenue issue - the team has made a deal to pay zilch in real estate taxes each year.  The city will be reliant on a gentrified Willets Point to provide the the revenue that the Mets really should be paying in the first place:

The latest redevelopment scheme, a relatively little-noticed part of Mr. Bloomberg’s NYC 2030 plan, is also stadium-related. Willets Point is adjacent to the Mets’ $600 million new ballpark presently being erected, and the team has a deal with the city to pay exactly zero dollars of real estate taxes on the stadium each year, meaning New York must generate a subsidiary economy to recoup the infrastructure dollars and tax breaks it’s invested.

I love baseball, but I find this kind of thing truly disgusting.

• Bloomberg’s Bossist Approach to Willets Point[NY Observer]

Related: OuterB Willets Point coverage [previously on OuterB]

Photo Credit: Satan’s Laundromat

Citi Field is the new Mets’ baseball park, the progress of its construction you can see from Shea Stadium, right as you enter it. According to Mets big-wigs, things are right on schedule, and by now you can see all the steel framework up for the three levels of seating to come. This park, like most new baseball parks, will seat fewer people but will be bigger in size than Shea, apparently to make space for concessions and the like. They are planning on building some fancy-schmanzy luxury suites, not in the middle of the stadium, but 114 feet from home plate:

The Mets will open 54 luxury suites at Citi Field, 10 of which, called the Sterling Suites, will be 18 rows from home plate. At Shea Stadium, the Mets’ brass has constructed a preview room where prospective suite buyers can get a feel for what will be in store at Citi Field. The suites will have outdoor seats sectioned off by sliding glass doors. Inside, they will come complete with luxury amenities: flat screen televisions, leather sofas, Sub Zero refrigerators, and a touch-button remote that will control electronics and allow fans to order food.

They can also get a lot more $$ for these select luxury seats than a whole lotta regular seats. When I go to a baseball game, luxury is not what I’m looking for - if I want to be really comfy, I’ll watch the game on TV in the privacy and luxury of my own home. Still seats that close are hot!

Related:
The Stadium Chase [NY Sun]
Mets Citi Field Site [NY Mets]

On Monday the 9th, residents of Jackson Heights got together to talk about and voice their concerns about the city’s plans for Willets Point. This was the third in a series of community meetings organized by City Councilmen Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst) and John Liu (D-Flushing). A big bone of contention (among a lot of big bones) is the fact that the city is not going to select a developer until after the city council approves the project. One resident said this is ridiculous, as the vote will be for a concept not a plan.  An important distinction to make.

Related:
Residents vent on Willets Pt. plan [Times Ledger]

Photo Credit: Satan’s Laundromat

Thanks to Christine Forg over at NY Houses 4 Sale for posting this rant about the city’s invoking eminent domain in Willets Point. The guy makes a lot of meaningful points - the swiping of land by the government is pretty creepy. Some call it stealing. Anyway, take a gander and come to your own conclusions.

Related:
“Hell no, we won’t go,” [NY Houses 4 Sale]
Eminent Domain… [YouTube]