RKO Keith’s Theatre developer awaits community board OK

Developer Patrick Thompson is expecting community board approval for his $160 million conversion of Flushing’s long-shuttered RKO Keith’s Theatre within the next few weeks and could finish the project by 2013 if he’s allowed to break ground this year, he told the Post. Thompson, who picked up the landmark for $20 million last year after Shaya Boymelgreen lost it in a friendly foreclosure, plans to turn the 389,000-square-foot property into a mixed-use complex with 357 market-rate rental apartments, retail, parking and a senior center. Thompson said he’d decided on rentals instead of high-end condos, as Boymelgreen had originally planned, because “in the current market that just didn’t make sense.” Thompson also plans to fully restore the three-story lobby as “a powerful statement about what Flushing used to be, and where Flushing is going,” he said. [Post]