Thursday, June 18, 2009

2,500 units of housing planned for Astoria


From the Daily News:

A gritty stretch of waterfront in Astoria is slated to get a radical facelift, with a proposal for seven mixed-use residential towers, some as tall as 32 stories.

The Lincoln Equities Group is planning 2,000 units of market-rate housing, with 500 affordable units, for Hallets Point, at the corner of First St. and 26th Ave., near the Astoria Houses.

The development would also include a supermarket, retail shops and restaurants - amenities currently lacking in the isolated neighborhood.

Construction - beginning with the demolition of small industrial buildings now there - could start as early as the fall of 2010. The site, which has been used for industrial purposes for decades, also needs to be remediated.

The new development will create new parks and connect to other nearby public spaces.

City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. is also pushing the developer for a bank and school at the site.

"It's an area sorely in need of development," said Vallone (D-Astoria), who hasn't taken a public stand on the project yet. "It's been in bad shape since before I was born."

Vallone said he has already negotiated with the developer to reduce the size of the planned towers.

"The pro of this development is that the neighborhood is very much in need of change and services," he said. "The con is that it's a very big project."

The construction is expected to create thousands of jobs. The developers said they're working with the community to ease the impact on the neighborhood.

"At this time, it is difficult to estimate the number of people those units will hold," said Bergstein, a Queens native.

"We have taken every step to ensure that this project will fit into the existing community by including plans for additional transportation, parking, electricity, sewage and other basic infrastructure needs," he said.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if all those jobs that will be created will go to the illeagal allians or the hard working american union members?

Queens Crapper said...

The unions now accept illegals.

Someone who knows said...

Buy early. Murderers are standing by. Now you too can enjoy the unique ambiance that is the Astoria Waterfront.

Conveniently located next to the world-famous Astoria projects with excellent ambulance and police service and a dozen funeral homes nearby. Close to all cemetaries. Drio dead now. No waiting. Be bagged and tagged before the hour is out.

Anonymous said...

Boy that should be interesting with yuppie condo's five feet within the Astoria Houses and all the traffic on Vernon. There was a shooting in front of those buildings a month ago.
It's like putting the Hunters Point Gantry park garbage a half a block from the Queensbridge houses which would mean uppity folks losing their cars and wallets most likely.
It'll be fun to watch this odd idea become much smaller just like development slowing down in Brooklyn and Atlantic Yards becoming a civic center architecture slop if ever built,that should have never been in the first place.

Housing for the naive Astorians.com.
Beach front property.

Anonymous said...

Is this being built by a certain "doctor" with mob ties?

Anonymous said...

This is great! It will really improve the neighborhood, because we all know what a ghost town Astoria is now!

Sergey Kadinsky said...

Located almost 30 blocks from the N train, this developement could use a ferry slip for a faster commute to Manhattan.

Actually, this part of Astoria once had a ferry to Manhattan, but that ended after the Triboro Bridge opened.

Anonymous said...

Located almost 30 blocks from the N train, this developement could use a ferry slip for a faster commute to Manhattan.

30 blocks, Sergey? Did you bother looking at a map before you typed that?
More like 15, which admittedly is still pretty far. Yeah, a WaterTaxi stop is probably in order. But with 2,000 luxury units going in, that may be feasible.

Anonymous said...

It's like putting the Hunters Point Gantry park garbage a half a block from the Queensbridge houses which would mean uppity folks losing their cars and wallets most likely.
---

Have you numbskulls ever thought what would happen in Suna's 40 foot wide 'public access' spanning Queensbridge and Gantry Parks?

A superhighway for sure.

Anonymous said...

It is a good 25 minute hike from the waterfront to the train next to a housing project and across highways.

Think of luxory housing in Hunts Point.

Vallone has topped himself! said...

This would strike me as an upscale Corona or Elmhurst, sort of like a LaFrak City designed for a Third World Setting.

No yuppies will move in (with all the other areas open) you have to be kidding!

Come to think of it, this will be a massive budding Calcutta or Mexico City with all the gangs or Macao with the Tongs.

Of course the locals say nothing said...

The infrastructure in that area is already hopelessly overwhelmed. In the center of three major powerplants and two sewage disposal facilities in the Bronx and Queens.

A Watertaxi?

ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Anonymous said...

Luxury buildings in Manhattan on the far west side and in LIC run shuttle buses to the subways and ferry terminals. There's no reason to think that these will not.

Anonymous said...

Luxury buildings in Manhattan on the far west side and in LIC run shuttle buses to the subways and ferry terminals. There's no reason to think that these will not.

BIG REASON TO DOUBT BECAUSE ITS PROMISED BY A DEVELOPER.

Anonymous said...

At this time, IT IS DIFFICULT TO ESTIMATE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE those units will hold," said Bergstein, a Queens native.

"WE HAVE TAKEN EVERY TEP TO ENSURE THAT WHIT PROJECT WILL FIT INTO THE EXISTING COMMUNITY by including plans for additional transportation, parking, electricity, sewage and other basic infrastructure needs," he said.

---

DOES ANYONE SEE A PROBLEM HERE? OR IS IT JUST ME.

WELL, LICA, CAN YOU TEAR YOURSELVES AWAY FROM PHOTO OPS WITH VALLONE AND LOOK INTO THIS?

Anonymous said...

Ha ha ha,

they NEVER talk about people, and hate to outline floors.

3200 people in developer speak is 4800 in the real world.

now that is one parcel when five are to be developed (between shore towers and hallets cove park)

4800 x 5 is 24,000 freakin people.

a solid wall hemming in astoria houses.

Thats The Way They Want It said...

a-ha! a-ha!

Your math is wrong.

2500 UNITS with Queens 3rd world population means 10,000 people, and with 5 superblocks to develp you are looking at upwards to 50,000. Now add illegals and they can qualify for their own tweeded council district.

Anonymous said...

Crappy, you missed the truth on this one. Check and see. Old man Tuoppe is the lobbyists on this project.

Anonymous said...

At this time, IT IS DIFFICULT TO ESTIMATE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE

Like that big upzoning, Astoria must be the only community where the people are stupid enough to buy this line of bullshit: We will rezone your community and figure out the infrastructure and number of people later.

How freaken dumb can you be?

Anonymous said...

Yea, but the gay issue brings in 2500 people (of which 2450 are from other communities)

Anonymous said...

its 1.2 miles to the astoria blvd N station. its BEHIND the pjs(you can see the field from the Triboro). theres a great baseball field there. I played their once when I was a kid, all the locals kept walking across the field DURING the game. sitting in the outfield as we played. they wouldnt move. we played a few innings and had to cancel the game. ah, the glory days!

Anonymous said...

I live here and I am on the warpath. I tell everyone who will listen that we are being r#ped.

My neighbors have been polled about this project from out-of-state call centers (God forbid they hire the people at Queensboro plaza and give jobs to our local poor) and they have told Vallone what we think.

All the old-timers are being displaced from our homes and our tax money is being used to facilitate this. Vote these F@ckers out this election day.

A Warning to Astoria Houses said...

This is the first step to closing the Astoria Houses.

In the thick stifling world of AStoria politics they can do anything they want to and the roar of the Hell Gate tides will muffle your screams.

Anonymous said...

I don't agree. As the bible says, "The poor you will always have with you." The people who they are screwing are the working and lower middle classes. The people in Astoria projects will take out their AK-47's and kill them first.

Anonymous said...

Don't buy into any of this bull. This project will never happen. If it does, it will fail miserably just like all of the luxury condos and open pits sitting idle on 11th street and Vernon Blvd. now, unfinished, with NO prospects of being finished and inhabited any time in the next 10 to 15 years and the ultimate eyesore / slap in the face of native Astorians / L.I.C.'ers by these greedy mothers who have turned our area into a bankrupt wasteland and flood plain of concrete and no drainage.

Instead of wasting more of our tax money on giving rebates to the greedy and the rich and forcing us homeowners to pay for this corruption, WHY NOT BRING REAL JOBS TO THE AREA TO REAL AMERICANS AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING TO OUR RESIDENTS or is that too much too ask?

Government by the people for the people NOT government paid for by the rich for the rich only.

Enough is enough with this luxury condo nonsense. There are NO jobs in NY anymore. NY has been hemoraging jobs for the last 2 years and with it, the very people that these developers have marketed to. They certainly haven't marketed to us. As 'our friend' Mayor Mike makes a mockery of this city by stifling the media in reporting these hard facts to the common man, him and his corrupt circle of friends would love for us to believe all is well in NY. How ridiculous, self-serving and plain criminal.

This is America. Time to speak out and take it back. Vote these people out.