Not so fast!
Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, who oversees housing and development, tamped down enthusiasm yesterday for the newly-announced plan to build a colossal mixed-used complex on Long Island City’s waterfront, saying it was “a little out of scale.”
Glen told Politico she’d heard the pitch for the “ambitious, aggressive” plan, and felt it had some “interesting ideas” in it. But the scale of the undertaking, she said, was a bit much even for the pro-height, pro-density de Blasio Administration.
Bruce Teitelbaum, the former chief of staff to ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has been presenting a plan for an enormous project centered around 44-02 Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City. The plan calls for a million-square-foot residential tower, along with a pedestrian bridge connecting the site to Roosevelt Island, where Cornell Tech is planning to open a campus in 2017. Teitelbaum is likely to seek a rezoning.
The de Blasio administration has identified Long Island City as an area to be potentially rezoned to allow for more affordable housing. [Politico] – Ariel Stulberg