The sales office is set to open this month for the Powerhouse, a conversion of a century-old power station on the East River. The project will offer ultra-luxury condominium apartments — can you say “Viking kitchen package?” — in the up-and-coming Hunters Point section of Long Island City, where thousands of new units are hitting the market.
The former factory building once famous for its smokestacks could be a litmus test for the Long Island City market. Developers see reason to be hopeful with a 2,000-person waiting list for the long-delayed project.
In testing the waters for high-end condo development, Long Island City is following in Brooklyn’s footsteps. Luxury condo living is going for $1,000 a square foot at One Brooklyn Bridge Park, the largest industrial-to-residential conversion in Brooklyn’s history — and also a waterfront property. But that’s in Brooklyn Heights, an established neighborhood.
“We’ll be competing with Brooklyn,” said Melina Starr, Prudential Douglas Elliman’s director of sales and marketing for the Powerhouse.
In the initial offering, the 177 apartments at the Powerhouse will average in the mid-$700s per square foot, starting from $450,000 for studios. The price point is between those for two other new high-end condos in Long Island City: Arris Lofts, which is farther inland, averaging around $700 a square foot, and Toll Brothers’ 5th Street Lofts, which is right near the Powerhouse, averaging $800 a square foot.
“People ask me, ‘What’s the next area where you can get in on the ground floor?'” said Andy Gerringer, managing director of the Prudential Douglas Elliman Development Marketing Group. “Clearly, Long Island City is one of them.
“It certainly needs some retail,” he said, “but it’s coming. It’s like Wall Street was years ago. Building a 24-hour community takes time.”
But according to architect Karl Fischer, the designer of the building in collaboration with architect Andr s Escobar, “it’s still Long Island City, and we had to attract people with other things. We had to have a lot of unique amenities.”
To that end, the Powerhouse is planning to build a virtual adult playground. It hired American Leisure Corp. to install and run the Aqua Grotto, a water-oriented social space. Custom-designed for the Powerhouse in collaboration with Escobar, the Aqua Grotto puts a communal spin on the spa concept, offering a “social sauna,” which encourages residents to sweat and mingle. It will feature a large whirlpool with a massaging waterfall.
One could hardly imagine a more radically different fate for the historic Pennsylvania Railroad Powerhouse on 2nd Street and 51st Avenue. The building was supposedly designed by McKim Mead & White (although some scholars have challenged that attribution) and built in 1909 to provide steam turbine-generated power for the electrification of the Long Island Rail Road. Its four towering smokestacks were a fixture on the East River waterfront until their demolition in April 2005, amid consternation among some in the Hunters Point community.
Cheskel Schwimmer, principal of Brooklyn-based CGS Builders, acquired the site, which also included the adjacent building that had housed the Schwartz Chemical Plant, in 2004. The Powerhouse condominium is phase one of a larger scheme, which will include another new construction residential building with 250 units, most likely luxury rentals, plus retail and a parking garage.
The developer estimated that the cost of phase one, the condominium, will be in excess of $100 million.
“We initially envisioned including the smokestacks in the project, but it proved to be almost impossible,” said Schwimmer. “We had to abandon that plan and demolish the smokestacks and the coal hopper section, which was the attic of the Powerhouse.”
“The original concept,” said Fischer, “was a better concept: to keep the four chimneys as historic landmarks and to build a glass box in between for another ten stories. The city and everybody loved that design.”
But city authorities insisted the plan clear the Board of Standards and Appeals,
which would have added six to 10 months to the process, “and the developer didn’t want to wait that long,” recalled Fischer.
CGS decided instead to replace the chimneys with shorter glass replicas and add a four-story glass-and-steel rooftop addition to the existing structure.
Even with the expedited plan, the project is way behind schedule and has taken a ribbing from real estate blogs. The original move-in date was spring 2007. Schwimmer said the building is now about nine months from completion.
“We fell behind with the interior renovation,” he said. “Preserving a 105-year-old building and at the same time doing a build-up is a big challenge. We had to demolish the old roof and secure an exterior wall that was 40 to 50 feet high. It took us much longer than we anticipated. But the market has gone in our favor.”
The new plan affords residents of units on the corners of the addition an interesting amenity. The circles formed by the glass recreations of the smokestacks, each 24 feet in diameter, will serve as panoramic, double-height living rooms for the corner apartments.
“It’ll be fun to actually sit in that glass circle and look out over a 360-degree view,” said Fischer.
The building’s interiors, according to Sar Inbar, who is overseeing the marketing in-house for CGS Builders, “blend a rough industrial chic approach with a modern contemporary look.”
The power plant’s interior originally consisted of a giant open space. Floors have been installed throughout the existing structure to create six stories of apartments with ceilings from 9 to 10 feet high. Some spaces on the top floor of the existing building have double-height ceilings, as does the lobby.
The lobby also has polished quartz floors, floor-to-ceiling white-glass panels and original brick and rosewood walls. Because he had a dramatic ceiling height to work with, said Escobar, the interior architect, “the lobby has a sitting area with a catwalk above it that overlooks the sitting room, all done in glass.”
The apartments have an open, loft-like feel. “When you come into a loft,” observed Escobar, “and you have a large raw volume, anything you do that is outrageous will work.”
The units are offered in 80 different layouts, ranging from 600-square-foot studios to 1,600-square-foot three-bedrooms, and have hardwood walnut floors, solidécore doors, Verizon FiOS wiring and Concierge Direct digital technology with wall or removable control panels. The technology will allow residents to control individual thermostats, make restaurant or theater reservations, schedule Aqua Grotto treatments, request apartment repairs and order baby-sitting or housecleaning services.
Opening into the living area, the kitchens will have stone countertops, high-sheen white lacquer cabinets, glass tile backsplashes, Viking stainless steel appliances, touches of dark wenge wood and an island with a sushi counter. The marble master bathrooms will have floating double sink vanities with polished stone countertops.
The Aqua Grotto spa program will offer a range of massage and beauty treatments, and the fitness center will offer personal training and classes in tai chi, pilates, yoga and meditation. The residents’ lounge will be equipped with a pool table, bar and media center. In-house film festivals are planned. The landscaped roof deck offers private cabanas, a barbecue grill and spacious sunbathing and lounge areas.
There is a children’s play area and Wi-Fi access throughout all common areas, so residents can “come down to do the Starbucks routine,” said American Leisure founder Steve Kass — “hang around with your laptop open and chit-chat with your neighbors.”