Rezoning in mid-2001 opened the mostly industrial Long Island City, Queens, to residential development, causing land values there to soar amid a wave of new construction and high hopes that an inland 37-block portion of the East River enclave will be the next Williamsburg.
Now, to great expectations, the first three luxury condominiums to hit the market in the neighborhood two inside the rezoned area and one nearer to the water are about to test buyers’ appetites.
The Gantry, expected to be completed by next spring, is located on the 5th Street waterfront strip in Hunters Point the most prominent image most New Yorkers conjure up when they think of Long Island City. Fifth Street is home to the only two occupied large-scale residential buildings in the area, the 43-story City Lights, a 500-unit co-op built in 1997, and the 43-story AvalonBay Riverview, completed in 2002 with 372 rentals.
The two towers won’t be alone for long. AvalonBay plans a second building and Rockrose Development intends to build seven towers on the strip, for a total of 3,250 units. The first one, a rental with 500 units, is set to open in the summer.
At six stories, the Gantry is modest by those standards, offering 47 one-, two- and three-bedroom condos, priced from the mid-$400,000s. But it offers Manhattan-style amenities, including 9-foot ceilings, oversized windows and private terraces in most units. Kitchens have stone countertops with mosaic tile backsplashes and stainless steel appliances, and bathrooms feature vessel sinks, slate tile floors, and oversized soaking tubs.
The contemporary-design lobby has linear metal walls with stainless steel accents, tile floors, and a eucalyptus wood desk with stone counter. Private cabanas are offered on the rooftop.
Before the Oct. 27 opening, according to Douglas Elliman’s Rick Kelly, a sales manager for the building, over 700 people had expressed interest in the project via the project’s Web site, www.thegantry.com.
Elliman has another building opening on 5th Street, at 50th Avenue, this fall, a five-story red-brick condominium with 11 loft-style apartments, ranging from 1,000 to 1,400 square feet, starting in the low $600,000s. According to Rick Rosa, sales rep for the property, “I have a list of 300 people who want to live in Long Island City. My problem isn’t having the buyers, it’s finding the inventory.”
Perhaps the most impressive, certainly the most exotic, Hunters Point amenity is the beach area created by New York Water Taxi, which imported 400 tons of genuine New Jersey sand for summer sunbathing, Frisbee and Tiki-Bar lounging. Regularly scheduled water taxis 10 a day, all year whisk commuters from the beach landing to East 34th Street in five minutes.
“The litmus test for the marketplace will be the Andalex Group project,” said Frank Zuckerbrot, president of Sholom Zuckerbrot Realty, a Long Island City commercial brokerage. The project, called Arris Lofts, is a conversion of the former Eagle Electric headquarters at Court Square into a 237-unit luxury condominium.
“The project has mass,’ said Zuckerbrot, “and it’s right at the edge of the zone that’s been redeveloped not within the Hunters Point district where the other towers are sitting. It’s testing the Long Island City condo market in a very entrepreneurial way.”
About a mile inland at 27-28 Thompson Avenue, the Arris is close to shops and services on Jackson Avenue something missing from most sections of Long Island City. The building is close to PS 1 and other art studios and galleries.
Designed by Brian Callahan of Costas Kondylis Architects, the rectangular building will have an elaborately landscaped interior courtyard with a water element in the middle, trees and large outdoor “fire pits” big sculptural bowls for burning wood.
According to James Lansill, managing director of the Sunshine Group, which is marketing the building, “Callahan is creating very sexy interior spaces. The lobby lounge is like some elegant nightclub.”
The building will have a 75-foot swimming pool, 8,000-square-foot gym, and children’s play area. “The building’s scale is unlike anything you see in Manhattan,” said Lansill. “It’s much longer than a city block: 445 feet by 380 feet.”
Originally a printing plant, the structure has 16-inch slab floors and 14- to 18-foot ceilings. Layouts start with the 750-square-foot studio, which will sell for around $450,000. Units will feature oversized kitchens, walk-in laundry rooms and large closets.
The Arris will sell 17 commercially-zoned spaces, from 700 to 2,000 square feet, to artists for use as work studios, starting at about $225,000. The building will open for sales in November and is scheduled for completion in fall 2006. Sunshine has received 2,000 responses to two newspaper ads for the project.
The Queens Plaza at 41-26 27th Street, a 10-story red-brick building with 66 condos, is in a section of Long Island City which has a ways to go.
“They will be testing the north side of Queens Plaza,” says Zuckerbrot, “which no one has tested before. The south and north sides of the Plaza still have an industrial feeling, but the north side is a little more removed from goods and services.”
But developer Shlomo Melkman figures close proximity to the subway will make the project attractive to young professional buyers. Plus, says Highlyann Krasnow, executive vice president of sales for project marketing firm the Developers Group, “our views are pretty spectacular, from the third floor and up, and almost all the units have balconies.”
The one-bedroom, one-bath and two-bedroom, two-bath apartments feature flat-paneled, open kitchens with stainless steel appliances, bathrooms with 6-foot soaking tubs and second bathrooms with 5-foot glass-enclosed showers. Parking is available for 33 cars. The building has a common roof deck and the penthouse units have private decks. Prices will be announced when the building opens for sales in early 2006.
For all the residential investment in Long Island City, says Gary Diana, principal of commercial brokerage DY Realty Services, “there is no retail. It’s the same problem in all the developing areas in the boroughs. The rents retailers can pay are not comparable to what the value would be for residential conversion. Nor is it comparable to high-end industrial. It’s economically unjustifiable at the moment.” He figures it’ll take about three years for a retail market to emerge, when the residential population hits a critical mass.
“We need a supermarket desperately,” said Annie Siegel, a hypnotherapist living in Hunters Point. Her complaint is mild, though. “I like living here. It’s just great being away from the hustle and bustle. I go to the city for shopping; it’s only one stop.”
But Siegel might be moving soon, as the small house in which she lives on 5th Street, which was purchased 10 years ago for $125,000, is now worth $1 million. And the owner is listening to offers.