Resorts World, Cirrus Buy Project for Workforce Housing

Cirrus Real Estate Partners and Resorts World are putting their chips where their mouths are, acquiring a site for workforce housing.

Cirrus and the gaming company bought the site at 93-30 165th Street in Jamaica, Queens, for $46.1 million, Crain’s reported. The joint venture plans to redevelop the parking garage as a housing development with up to 700 homes.

An affiliate of Greater Jamaica Development Corporation sold the site to the joint venture. A Ripco Real Estate team of Kevin Schmitz and Stephen Preuss Sr. represented the seller.

The 246,000-square-foot corner lot is permitted for more than 600,000 square feet of buildable space. The site is in the swath of Jamaica that was rezoned last year, a process expected to result in the creation of approximately 12,000 homes.

“The acquisition of this property demonstrates our commitment to transforming well-located sites into high-quality workforce housing that creates lasting value for communities,” Cirrus managing partner Joseph McDonnell told the publication.

The deal is the first for the joint venture under an initiative launched last May. That’s when Cirrus formed the joint venture with Resorts World New York City to build up to 50,000 housing units across the five boroughs, a promise that sweetened the latter’s bid to expand its slot parlor in Queens into a full-blown casino.

In December, Resorts World clinched one of three licenses awarded by the state. The 5.6 million-square-foot casino is expected to include up to 6,000 slot machines, 800 gaming tables, 2,000 hotel rooms and a 7,000-seat arena. It will take three to four years to build and completion is expected in 2031.

The partners behind Cirrus have overseen $150 billion in real estate finance transactions, $10 billion in real estate equity investments and more than 10,000 multifamily units, but lack ground-up development experience.

Their most high-profile project is Pacific Park, where Cirrus and development partner LCOR need to ink a memorandum of understanding outlining the project by the end of next month.

— Holden Walter-Warner