Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by nym9
What do you mean by a pre-built structure? Are you saying the tunnel to extend the 7 to the Javits Center already exists?
On the eastern end, the 7 runs along Roosevelt Avenue and ends at Main Street.
Inside a pre-built structure, far as I know the flushing line ends on roosevelt.
What do you mean by a pre-built structure? Are you saying the tunnel to extend the 7 to the Javits Center already exists?
On the eastern end, the 7 runs along Roosevelt Avenue and ends at Main Street.
FLUSH WITH POTENTIAL: A new mixed-use development in downtown Flushing is set to revitalize the underused and underserved Queens neighborhood.
NORTHEAST REAL ESTATE BUSINESS
May, 2005
By Kevin Jeselnik
http://www.muss.com/news/050105.phtml
When complete, the Flushing Town Center will feature 750,000 square feet of retail space and a parking deck in the three-level base structure, with more than 1,000 apartments and condos in six residential towers constructed above it.
Years ago, in the late 1980s, Muss Development Company of Forest Hills, New York, had the foresight to acquire a blighted parcel of industrial property in Queens and stow it away for future use. That 14-acre brownfield site, which is located at the intersection of College Point Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, is now at the center of a major revival underway in Queens. Located in west Flushing — a Queens neighborhood and one of the boroughs largest business centers — the site is being readied for the development of one of the most expansive mixed-use projects to go up in Queens in years. The Flushing Town Center will be a $600 million, 3.2 million-square-foot retail and residential center that will build upon and enhance the vitality of downtown Flushing. CE Flushing LLC, an affiliate of Muss Development Company, is spearheading the project.
"Most of Flushing's commercial and residential development — though there has been very little of it in recent years — occurred to the east of downtown while the west was always very industrial," says Jim Jarosik, senior vice president with Muss Development Company "So for quite a period of time, the city has envisioned the redevelopment of the west side of Flushing" The redevelopment of underutilized property in the boroughs has been a priority of New York City's brass for some time as well, in 1998, the City Planning Commission acted to rezone the Flushing Town Center site and others in the surrounding area for commercial and residential use. Soon after, Jarosik says, a number of national retailers expressed interest in a potential retail development on the 14-acre tract. It was then that Muss Development Company began preliminary development plans.
After assuming ownership of the property, which was previously owned and operated by Con Edison, Muss Development Company operated the property as a light industrial center. "There were some buildings from the previous owner, so we just rented those buildings while holding the site, waiting for the right time to develop it," Jarosik says. "And beginning about 4 or 5 years ago, there was a lot of interest coming from major retailers. We used that [interest] as the cornerstone to create this development."
Now, with a master plan in place and with the aid of various state tax benefits offered to developers performing remediation on former brownfield sites, Muss is ready to begin. However, before construction starts, Muss is completing extensive testing on the site and performing remediation of contaminated areas. 'We have done a lot of testing already," explains Jarosik. "We are completing the delineation and characterization of the soil, and there will be an operation in early summer where we will be removing areas of soil and exporting it off the site." Once the land rehabilitation is complete, Jarosik expects to break ground on foundation work for the buildings by the end of the year.
In planning the project, the team assessed both the lack of a significant retail presence in the area and the ever-present need for housing in New York City. The developers designed Flushing Town Center to deliver a large amount of both. When it is completed in 2007, it will boast approximately 750,000 square feet of retail, some 1,000 residential units and a 2,650-car parking structure. 'We designed a project that has three levels of retail in two buildings with a parking deck in the middle," explains Jarosik. "That three-level structure acts as a podium, and there are six residential towers that are going to built on top of that platform."
For the retail component New York City-based architect Perkins Eastman has designed a vertical large-format complex comprising two buildings — the West building and East building — with a parking garage in between. Muss sought to attract the popular big box-format retailers and tailored the buildings for that use. "The spaces have been designed with 20-foot floor-to-floor heights and 30-foot to 40-foot column spacing to attract large-format retailers, be it a discount department store, a home improvement store, or a category-dominant big box such as Best Buy, Marshalls or Staples," Jarosik says.
The West building has a footprint of approximately 135,000 square feet, with each level roughly 260 feet deep and 500 feet wide. "The ground floor of the West building sets up nicely for one large retailer to occupy the entire 135,000 square feet — you could plug any of a number of big box retailers into that space," says Jarosik. 'We have terraced the building so it is a little smaller going up. The upper levels are going to split up well for a mix of tenants."
The East building proved a more challenging building to design, but the end result is similar. "We have carved it up into a variety of spaces ranging anywhere from 20,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet. And then there is one tenant that will effectively occupy the entire 190,000-square-foot top floor," Jarosik explains. Though leasing is in its early stages, the retail anchors for both buildings (which are not yet released to the public) have been signed. The retail space is scheduled to be open for occupation by spring of 2007 with shops ready for business in the fall of that year.
In order to incorporate a significant amount of residential space in the development, the team had to be creative. Separate entrances for shoppers and residents have been designed around the development's most important comer — that which is closest to downtown Flushing. "That is the tightest comer of the site, so we had to figure out how to put both the residential and retail entrances near that spot. So, to the left of the comer on College Point Boulevard, we put the retail entrance. To the right, on Roosevelt Avenue, we put the residential entrance," Jarosik says. Residents will enter their designated lobby and take an elevator up to the roof level of the three-story retail/parking complex. At that point they will exit onto the sky lobby — a streetscape environment on which the six towers are situated, There, they will walk through a landscaped esplanade to their particular tower and take an elevator to their unit The end result is a community of condominium and apartment homes that seem to have been constructed at street level.
The residential units are being marketed to a range of demographics; Jarosik describes the target market as "upscale, middle-income and multi-ethnic." The developers have given special consideration to the residents that will live above this fully planned retail center Explains Jarosik, I think it has been a particular challenge for our architect to create this large retail environment that needs to be exciting and bright, with large signage and lighting, yet also create a residential community that needs to be quiet and distinctive. So it has been very demanding to develop the actual fabric of the building around that point."
From the challenges the team faced, a striking example of mixed-use development has emerged. Muss evaluated the site, the community and city and created the best possible use for the property Not only will Queens residents now have a destination retail center in their borough, but a significant amount of housing has been provided to a metro area that is much in need. "The company's background is primarily residential in nature, so our instincts are always to develop residential. Josh Muss, principal of Muss Development Company, is a great believer in creating housing for New York City He felt it was very important and necessary to create housing as part of this development," Jarosik says.
And perhaps just as significant is the manner in which these much-needed components were delivered. The team brought the concept of residential over retail from Manhattan out into the boroughs. "A project with multi-tower residential on top of vertical, large-format retail in New York City has not been done in this scale or size before," says Jarosik. By getting the most out of the property, Muss has kick-started the redevelopment of a once-blighted part of town and is bringing a true mixed-use project to metro New York City.
Im saying there is an underground structure from Times Square to the Port Authority, UNLIKE the last stop on the other end (Roosevelt ave)
It runs along Roosevelt, passes Main st. and ends (on Roosevelt).
Flushing Moves Beyond 'Valley of the Ashes'
Commercial Real Estate
http://www.nysun.com/article/17382
BY MICHAEL STOLER
July 21, 2005
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
The World's Fair arrived in Flushing Meadows Park in 1939 and brought about the elimination of the Corona dumps, dubbed the "valley of ashes" by F. Scott Fitzgerald in "The Great Gatsby." Twenty-five years later, the New York Mets celebrated the opening of Shea Stadium in the Willets Point neighborhood. Four decades later, massive development is finally taking shape in the area, which boasts a waterfront and the Flushing River and is home to more than a half-million people who speak 109 different languages among them.
In February 2004, the New York City Economic Development Corporation solicited proposals for the redevelopment of a 5.5-acre site at Union Street between 37th and 39th avenues in the heart of downtown Flushing. The site is the largest the city owns. Within days, the city received 13 responses from developers around the country.
Last week, the city announced that a joint venture named Flushing Commons LLC - comprised of Flushing based TDC Development and Construction Corporation and the Rockefeller Group - were selected for a $500 million project. According to industry insiders, the joint venture is paying about $100 million for the site. The project includes plans for the following:
* a 1-acre town square with a fountain plaza
* 570,000 square feet of below-grade and enclosed above-grade parking for 2,000 cars
* a 50,000-square-foot recreational center
* a 120,000-square-foot business class hotel with meeting rooms and banquet facilities
* about 650,000 square feet of luxury residential space for about 650 residential units, with 20% of the units age-restricted and marketed to seniors
* 350,000 square feet of retail with local and national retailers, including a supermarket, shops, restaurants, and a multi-screen cinema
* 20,000 square feet of space for community or cultural tenants
* 60,000 square feet of public open space and 15,000 square feet of space for small businesses.
The major investor in this project is Apollo Real Estate Advisors L.P. TDC Development has been active in the redevelopment of Flushing since the city decided to rezone downtown Flushing west of Main Street. These projects include Prince Center and office buildings, Flushing Mall and Sanford Tower, an apartment building.
In addition to the Union Street development, the city and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall worked with the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church, located on the eastern edge of the site, to acquire a half-acre parcel north of the church. The church plans to build more than 100 units of affordable housing and street-level retail.
A few blocks away sits a 14-acre brownfield site owned by the Muss Organization. In February, the Muss Development Organization announced plans to build a $600 million mixed-use development on a site at College Point Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue that the company has owned for more than two decades. When completed, the site will have 800,000 square feet of retail space, six condominium and rental buildings with about 1,000 units, a 2,600-unit parking facility, and a 55-foot-wide esplanade along the Flushing River. The site will include a Target store and Home Depot.
On the waterfront, real estate investor Sam Suzuki and his partners at the Vintage Organization will be constructing the Flushing Promenade, a gated community of 400 condominium residences. Units are projected to be sold for $525 per square foot.
Later this year, Shaya Boymelgreen of Boymelgreen Development Company will begin the redevelopment of 3,000 seat RKO Keith theatre located on Northern Boulevard at the end of Main Street across from the Northern Boulevard Bridge. Plans call for a 19-story mixed-use complex of retail, valet parking for 233 autos, community space, commercial, and condominium apartments, including the restoration of the landmark grand lobby of the historic movie theater. The developer received overwhelming approval for the redevelopment by the community board, one year after it had unanimously rejected his original plans for the site. The scaled site will have approximately 200 condominium units projected to sell for about $650 a square foot.
South of the Boymelgreen development on Main Street, developer and real estate investor Michael Lee plans a 12-story glass-and-granite retail and office building on the site of the Queens County Savings Bank. On another site on Northern Boulevard, a building that previously housed a Sears will be demolished for another mixed-use development.
The former site of the 26-acre Flushing Airport will be developed into a wholesale center for about 180 small businesses and importers. The Economic Development Corporation selected a consortium of Korean business owners to develop the site. The new owners plan to spend $175 million for a two-story, 585,000-squarefoot warehouse complex.
Industry leaders often say Flushing is one of the most vibrant, dynamic areas in the city. It is served by the no. 7 subway line and home to the busiest subway station outside of Manhattan. The 7 line stops at Main Street, where commuters can travel to Grand Central Station in only 30 minutes. The Long Island Railroad is adjacent to the Main Street subway, and 11 MTA and private bus lines run to the Main Street station. Direct bus service links the area to La-Guardia Airport.
***
The vice president of the Muss Development Organization, Jason Muss, said, "The confluence of local business, local expertise with tremendous outflow of foreign capital, from the fastest growing and potentially largest economy of the world. Capital from Taiwan and Hong Kong flowing in will continue to make Flushing a vibrant marketplace."
The managing director and principal at Apollo Real Estate Advisors L.P., Richard Mack, said, "We believe strongly in the prospects for investing in the boroughs of New York City, and that Flushing is one of the most vibrant and dynamic areas in the entire New York metro area."
The chairman of the retail leasing and sales division at Prudential Douglas Elliman, Faith Hope Consolo, said: "As the largest urban center in Queens, Flushing has potential to become a premiere retail corridor. Flushing is the next Forest Hills."
And the president of Muss Development Organization, Josh Muss, said, "Development can take 20 to 30 years for a project to come to fruition." Timing is everything, and, finally, the combination of these new developments, the proposed new stadium for the Mets, redevelopment of Willets Point, and the waterfront will only help Flushing and the city.
I can only hope that the other Home Depot off College Pt. Blvd will be closed. 3 Home Depots within a mile or so of each other is ridiculous. Maybe if it was a Lowe's or something...I also can see Wal-Mart making a push here.
More on the Flushing Promenade...
http://www.denardis.com/resimage/flushing.html
This project consists of a complex of 5 buildings with 450,000 square feet of total space. The complex includes residential apartments, commercial space and multistory underground concrete parking garages.
haha. When I found out about the 2nd one, I thought that was ridiculous (and still do).
The new Shea Stadium should have gone where the Flushing Town Center is going - a waterfront site directly connected to Downtown Flushing would have been sweet. Oh, well.
1) 5 acres really isn't very large
2) That development is not on the water
3) On the water, right next to the stadium, will be a 50 acre redevelopment of Willet's Point.
A Lowe's would be suitable with the obvious competition argument. Wal-Mart still has a stigma in Queens (They wanted to build in Rego Park; didn't happen). The area generally has massive swaths of land and is ripe for development.
My first post here. *grin*
Theres a wal-mart close by in Valley Stream, and a relatively new Target in North Queens, I dont see a need for Wal-mart. Or a Lowes for that matter.
More Flushing Town Center
apdigital.com
Ehh, they are really short and squat looking.
This is looking like Orange County, CA crossed with Indianapolis (and not the best of either).
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