Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Queens Plaza getting another tower

From Crains:

The two-story, neon Eagle Electric sign, a long-time landmark in Long Island City, that was replaced by a regular billboard over a decade ago, is slated to get a high-profile successor—a 40-story, 400-plus-unit rental tower.

Early this month a consortium of Property Markets Group, the Hakim Organization and Vector Group paid $37 million for 23-10 Queens Plaza South, a prewar Art Deco-style loft building that was once home to Eagle Electric's production facilities, and a neighboring building at 23-01 42nd Road. The plan is to demolish the latter building and, with the considerable air rights afforded by the adjacent factory, construct a brand new apartment tower.

Long Island City has seen a boom in residential development in recent years, but much of the building has been focused along the waterfront. What drew the investors to the Eagle Electric site was a shift in development away from the river—where most properties have been snapped up, if not built up, already—towards Queens Plaza.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Makes no damn sense.

Surrounded by bridge ramps and train tracks, 3 blocks from the projects, 3 blocks from Zone A, no neighborhood amenities.

Makes no damn sense. What are we missing? What is the gimmick?

Tax credits?

Anonymous said...

When the developers dig the foundations for the new building don't forget they can dump the contaminated soil in north-east Queens.
It's happen before.

Anonymous said...

Mot of that kind of soil,
was traditionally trucked away to Staten Island, New Jersey, or even far off Pennsylvania.

The recent Barone-Vallone Whitestone job is a rarity.

HOWEVER,
"Garbage Point" (College Point) has been a dump for decades.

Anonymous said...

Long Island City,
Hunters Point, Hallets Cove,
the whole damn Astorian shores, is gone for good.
It's manifest destiny!

FUGHETTABOUTIT!

What's one more high rise?
That's just another turd floating in the bowl!

Anonymous said...

Its all municipal waste landfill back in the 19 teens right after the bridge was built. God knows what leached under the Eagle electric building.

Actually that area had springs that fed Dutch Kills and Sunswick Creek.

Great place to work. Better place to raise kids.

Not.

Anonymous said...

"Perfection is no accident" was the motto of the Eagle Electric Corp.

I want the fifth(?) floor corner apartment - Only three feet from the elevated tracks. I want to wave at everyone as they pass by

Gary the Agnostic said...

Just what we need.

Anonymous said...

Why build there? 1 stop from Manhattan, growing job center, bedrock close to surface for rock sockets and caisson -> skyscraper foundations. The area on the south side of Queensboro Plaza has no parking minimums. Its probably the only area outside of Manhattan that is like this.

Anonymous said...

Asthma alley...a great place to raise kids!

Anonymous said...

Why build there? 1 stop from Manhattan, growing job center, bedrock close to surface for rock sockets and caisson -> skyscraper foundations. The area on the south side of Queensboro Plaza has no parking minimums. Its probably the only area outside of Manhattan that is like this.
--------------------------------
For now, but not for too much longer.

Anonymous said...

Just watch - the people who move in there will make all kinds of complaints about the noise from the subways and the bridge.

Anonymous said...

, bedrock close to surface for rock sockets and caisson -> skyscraper foundations

It was a marsh with lots of springs underground.

Anonymous said...

It was a marsh with lots of springs underground
________________________________________________

It depends where you are. The area south and east of Jackson Ave was a marsh. The rail yard had a creek though it. The blocks south of Queensboro Plaza are high ground. There was a marsh around the creek flowing north through old Ravenswood and was to the north of the site. You can easily dig down through the confining unit to the shallow bedrock below. When they dug out the station box and tail tracks for 21st-Queensbridge, they had to blast down through bedrock. The bedrock crops up around Queensbridge Park and up to Astoria Park along the East River. It slopes down to the south and east.

There was a condo along that went up recently on Jackson Ave that had caissons go down 60' from surface. That makes it ~45' below sea level. I remember the piles for that UN credit union building was <50'.