Long Island City may have lost out on Amazon’s corporate campus, but the area is quickly becoming New York’s unofficial package headquarters.
Andrew Chung’s Innovo Property Group plans to build an 842,175-square-foot, five-story warehouse at 23-30 Borden Avenue in Long Island City. The last-mile distribution facility will have three stories of industrial space and two stories of studio and accessory space, according to plans filed with the Department of Buildings.
Innovo partnered with Atalaya Capital Management and Hong Kong-based Nan Fung Group to buy the property about two years ago for $75 million from Atlas Capital Group.
In a sign of strength for the industrial market, the property sold for 56 percent more than its 2016 sale price.
The site was previously home to a warehouse for FreshDirect. The online grocer completed a lengthy and controversial move of its headquarters from Long Island City to the South Bronx in 2018.
Innovo’s project will sit at the entrance of the Midtown Tunnel and is close to Williamsburg. It is expected to be completed in 2022, according to NanFung Group’s website, pending zoning approval.
Innovo has become one of New York’s most active warehouse buyers. In April, the firm scored $305 million in construction financing for a 1 million-square-foot industrial development in the Bronx. The firm purchased the site in 2017 from Extell Development.
In September 2019, the company reached a $430 million agreement in September to buy out Westbrook Partners’ majority stake warehouse at 24-02 49th Avenue in Queens. It marked the largest deal in Queens in about a year.