Miramar and C condos in Elmhurst

New construction is gaining ground in Elmhurst, leading to a revival of the Queens neighborhood that has civic leaders calling for expanded Metropolitan Transportation Authority service to the area, the Wall Street Journal reported. Two new condominium buildings, the Miramar and C Condo, have opened in recent years with an eye on luring Manhattanites to under-the-radar Queens enclave. In the next few weeks Pi Capital will bring a mixed-use development on Broadway and Queens Boulevard with 83 apartments and several retail spaces to the market. [more]

The Rockaway Beach Branch LIRR tracks and the High Line

Queens residents have renewed efforts to turn old Rockaway Beach Branch Long Island Rail Road tracks into an outer borough version of the High Line, the New York Daily News reported.

The tracks, which run above street level for 3.5 miles from Rego Park to Ozone Park, have been out of service for nearly 50 years, and have already become overrun with trees and vegetation.

“It’s green, yet it has economic development opportunities,” said Andrea Crawford, chairwoman of Community Board 9, who met with city officials to discuss preliminary plans for the transformation. [more]

The Long Island Rail Road is looking to revamp its Penn Station space, according to the Wall Street Journal. LIRR officials would like to improve the space by adding better signage and more natural light to facilitate passenger flow. “It’s a facility that’s showing its age,” said Helena Williams, LIRR president. “It’s cluttered visually, functionally.” The railroad plans to solicit designers early next year to study the problems at Penn Station and come up with proposals for fixing them, which should take less than a year, Williams said. [more]

The Village of Sag Harbor will bid on a 16,405-square-foot, waterfront
property owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long
Island Railroad, according to the Sag Harbor Express, the same land
which the developers of the stalled Ferry Road condominium property are trying to acquire through an adverse possession claim. Adverse possession is the occupation of property for an extended period of
time, which is not legally owned by the person
occupying the property, sometimes referred to as squatting. After

expressing interest in the land for a number of years, Sag Harbor
received the MTA’s request for proposals for the sale of the property June 4.

Meanwhile, the developers of East End Vultures, a proposed condo
project adjacent to the LIRR-owned land, originally said they were in
contract to buy the property from the MTA. After those talks stalled,
they filed an adverse possession claim with the county Supreme Court,
which has yet to be decided. According to the RFP, the site is being

sold subject to that claim and any purchaser will be substituted as
the defendant in that case. [Sag Harbor Express]

[more]

The Village of Sag Harbor will bid on a 16,405-square-foot, waterfront
property owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long
Island Railroad, according to the Sag Harbor Express, the same land
which the developers of the stalled Ferry Road condominium property are trying to acquire through an adverse possession claim. Adverse possession is the occupation of property for an extended period of
time, which is not legally owned by the person
occupying the property, sometimes referred to as squatting. After

expressing interest in the land for a number of years, Sag Harbor
received the MTA’s request for proposals for the sale of the property June 4.

Meanwhile, the developers of East End Vultures, a proposed condo
project adjacent to the LIRR-owned land, originally said they were in
contract to buy the property from the MTA. After those talks stalled,
they filed an adverse possession claim with the county Supreme Court,
which has yet to be decided. According to the RFP, the site is being

sold subject to that claim and any purchaser will be substituted as
the defendant in that case. [Sag Harbor Express]

[more]

The inspector general at the U.S. Department of Transportation has launched a probe into how government funds were used in some of the city’s largest transit projects, many of which have fallen years behind schedule and have been plagued by major cost overruns. The projects in question — the Second Avenue Subway, the Fulton Transit Center, the new PATH terminal and the Long Island Rail Road extension to Grand Central Terminal — have received $7 billion in federal funds, which were overseen by the Federal Transit Administration. The investigation, which began March 25 and is expected to last 10 months, will look into whether the FTA muddled its regulatory job and allowed the projects to stray so far from their original plans. The PATH terminal is a Port Authority project; the other three projects are backed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority. [Post]

The New York Police Department’s 108th precinct has handed over 15 of its roughly 55 Long Island City parking spots to residents of One Hunters Point, the new 12-story condo tower at 549 Borden Avenue, who have complained for months that the cops were taking up more than their fair share of parking. The condo owners, who also recently succeeded in a campaign to lessen the volume of idling Long Island Railroad train engines nearby, petitioned and lobbied Community Board 2 to get the street parking issue on the table. The NYPD hasn’t exactly surrendered the spots, though. — the city has merely agreed to “kicked the can down the street a little,” according to Joseph Conley, chair of Community Board 2. Now, the bright red “no standing” signs that irked those living at One Hunters Point will be located on the west side of Fifth Street.

In a bid to create worthwhile, sustainable growth on Long Island, urban planners are encouraging the development of downtown areas on the island, according to the New York Times. The 2010 indicator study from the Long Island Index released last week, which focuses on the commercial and residential development of the island, looked at 156 Long Island towns and neighborhoods, singling out 111 as easily-developable downtown regions. Nancy Douzinas, president of the Rauch Foundation, which helped fund the report, said that the study concluded developing more urban parts of Long Island was preferable to adding more homes and facilities in suburban sections of the area. She said that developers should look to build near public transit, such as the Long Island Rail Road, to attract younger residents — a move that would be “a boost to the local economy.” Jack Martins, the mayor of Mineola, one of the towns singled out in the report as being particularly ideal for downtown development, said he favors enhancing the town’s transit hub with more development. “In a community like ours it would be fantastic to have all of these dimensions,” Martins said, adding that building up the city’s downtown sector would help preserve existing suburban neighborhoods.