Tavros, Charney plan 55-story rental on long-stalled site

JV closed on $68M deal for parcel once slated for Queens’ largest hotel

Tavros Capital’s Nicholas Silvers and Charney Companies’ Sam Charney in front of 24-05 thru 24-19 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City (Getty Images, Tavros Capital, Charney Companies, Google Maps)
Tavros Capital’s Nicholas Silvers and Charney Companies’ Sam Charney in front of 24-05 thru 24-19 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City (Getty Images, Tavros Capital, Charney Companies, Google Maps)

A Long Island City site where a developer once envisioned Queens’ largest hotel could soon give rise to one of the borough’s tallest apartment towers instead.

Tavros Capital and Charney Companies closed on the long-stalled development site at 24-19 Jackson Avenue for $68.3 million, records show. Together with a neighboring parcel owned by Tavros and Charney at 45-03 23rd Street, the property forms a triangular assemblage in the neighborhood’s Court Square area, where the joint venture plans a 55-story mixed-use tower with 600 apartments and 90,000 square feet of retail and offices, a Tavros representative told The Real Deal.

Seller Toyoko Inn, a Japanese hotel operator, spent $26 million cobbling together the assemblage between 2007 and 2014, eventually filing plans for a 50-story, 1,200-key hotel, which would have been its first in the U.S. and the largest in the outer boroughs.

But the hotel project never got off the ground, and after the City Council passed a measure last December requiring developers to obtain special permits before constructing new hotels, Toyoko Inn put the property on the market in January, hoping to get around $60 million for it.

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A CBRE team led by Dan Kaplan represented the Toyoko Inn in the sale to Tavros and Charney, which went into contract in May. Work on the joint venture’s apartment tower has already begun: The project qualified for the 421a tax abatement because foundation work was done before the tax break lapsed in June, the developers said.

Tavros and Charney have experience teaming up on projects. In January, the companies paid Property Markets Group $102 million for a full-block site at 318 Nevins Street in a recently rezoned area of Gowanus, where they plan a 660-unit apartment building.

The partners also co-developed the 177-unit Dime rental building in Williamsburg and the 56-unit condominium building dubbed the Jackson at 11-51 47th Avenue in Long Island City.

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