Developer Steve Cheung purchased a vacant site for $8.3 million where a bankrupt Brooklyn company sought to build a Starwood Aloft Hotel in Long Island City during the real estate boom.

Cheung, president of Elmhurst-based E Home Real Estate, closed this past Friday on the acquisition of the L-shaped parcel at 29-37 41st Avenue that has 205,032 square feet of development rights, he told The Real Deal. The price comes out to about $40.48 per square foot.

Cheung has been developing residential projects for about a decade in Queens, he said, in areas such as Flushing and Ridgewood, including the five-story mixed-use project at 311 Saint Nicholas Avenue in Ridgewood. He recently purchased 70-32 Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst for a future project. [more]

29-37 41st Avenue

A developer that sought to build a Starwood Aloft Hotel in Long Island City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just over a month after its lender U [more]

The vacant site at 29-37 41st Avenue

Lender U.S. Bank won a judgment for $17.2 million, in a decision published yesterday, against a developer that sought to build a Starwood Aloft hotel in Long Island City, but the project stalled and the site remains vacant. In addition to the judgment on the loan, the decision awarded the bank $4.3 million in personal guarantees given by four individuals to secure the loan. The lender’s victory over the investors may portend further trouble for developers citywide who frequently provided millions of dollars in personal guarantees during the building boom to encourage lending, but who now are facing judgments by lenders seeking to collect on their promises to pay all or portions of loans. The developer, Queens Plaza Development, filed plans to build a 16-story hotel at 29-37 41st Avenue in Queens Plaza near the Queensboro Bridge, Department of Buildings documents show. Last year, Starwood’s Web site identified the 249-room project as By the Bridge, with an opening date of Dec. 31, 2010, but that information is no longer available on the site. Starwood did not immediately respond to a request for comment. [more]

National lender U.S. Bank is suing to recover a $17.2 million loan made
to a Brooklyn company that planned to develop a Long Island City parcel into a
Starwood Aloft hotel, court papers show. “The relief sought is judgment against defendant Queens Plaza
Development in the amount of $17,236,709.77, plus interest, costs and
attorneys fees,” the motion filed April 24 in Manhattan State Supreme
Court says. Queens Plaza Development filed plans in January 2008 for a 220-foot
tall, 16-story hotel at 29-37 41st Avenue in Queens Plaza,
city Department of Buildings records show. Despite demolishing a three-story bank building after demolition plans
were filed with DOB in March 2008, the site remains vacant.
[more]