Willets Point firm buys $3M relocation parcel

City pays the company $18M to vacate its current location

A metal fabricating company currently housed in Willets Point within the footprint of the city’s $3 billion mixed-use development project bought a $3 million parcel that is more than three times the size of its current location about a mile north in College Point.

Feinstein Iron Works, which produces structural steel, bought the approximately 118,000-square-foot parcel near the intersection of 31st Avenue and College Point Boulevard on Dec. 16 from the city’s Economic Development Corporation, property records published Tuesday show. At the same time, the city gave to the industrial firm a $3 million purchase money mortgage, city records show.

The plot of land is in a former New York City Police Department towing lot.

On the same day, the city’s EDC paid Feinstein $18.35 million to vacate the 36,000-square-foot parcel it now occupies at 126-85 Willets Point Avenue, at 37th Avenue, in Corona, city records published Dec. 22 show.

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Both deed transactions were originally agreed to in November 2008 before closing this month, city property records show.

The city plans to redevelop the 62-acre Willets Point that is now occupied by scrap yards and auto repair companies just east of Citi Field, into a large mixed-use community. The city now controls 80 percent of the land that will be in the first phase of development, a spokesman for the agency said in an e-mail.

Daniel Feinstein, president of Feinstein Iron, would not comment on the financial arrangement. He said the company is still operating in Willets Point and did not know when it would move to the new location.

“Our intent is to construct a building there and relocate our business,” he said.