Developers are soaking NYC’s waterfront areas with new construction

Five years after Superstorm Sandy soaked the city’s coastal neighborhoods and caused billions in damages, developers are flooding those areas with new residential and commercial buildings.

According to StreetEasy, there’s been an “explosion” of new buildings in waterfront neighborhoods like Red Hook and Belle Harbor in Queens, reported DNAinfo. “The demand for new housing has proven stronger than the memory of Sandy’s destruction,” Grant Long, a senior economist, said in the report.

Developers built 27 new residential buildings in Red Hook since 2012, according to the report. The neighborhood’s streets were flooded with up to nine feet of water during Sandy. In May, Sitex Group agreed to pay Italian developer Est4te Four $110 million for a five-property development site on the waterfront.

In Queens, Belle Harbor — which was hard hit by the storm — has seen prices rebound since 2012. The median sales price on the peninsula dropped to $207,000 from $357,500 after Sandy. But it bounced back and is seeing the largest building boom of any flood-zone neighborhoods in the city.

Bob Tracey, of Tracey Real Estate, said potential storms are “part of the territory” when people move to the coast. “Living along the coast has its benefits and its liabilities,” he said, “and the benefits outweigh the possibility of a storm.” [DNAinfo] — E.B. Solomont