I'm sad to report that the Mobil station at the corner of Northern Blvd. & Bell Blvd. closed this week and has been dismantled. According to area residents I've spoken to, this had been a service station for as long as anyone can remember.
The only clue I have as to what happened is a postcard I received in the mail (I had my oil changed there many times) saying that the service station had lost it's lease. If anyone has any information about what's happening to this site, I'd be interested to know.
So much has changed along this stretch of Northern in just the last few years. The BMW detailing facility is now a blue, multi-story building. Pier 25A is closed and Burger King is scheduled to close and be redeveloped. It's hard to think that this site won't be transformed as well. Hoping for the best.
-Mike in (what used to be!) Bayside
So far, there's only a permit to remove the underground storage tanks. But with R6B/R4B/C2-2 zoning, prepare to see a giant pile of crap built in its place.
31 comments:
Not only will you see a pile of crap in its place, but expect it to have signage in a foreign language with characters indiscernible to everyone.
A giant pile of crap built in its place?
Worse than a service station?
Worse than cars pulling out on two different streets?
Worse than cars cutting through the station because of the light?
Worse than the smell of gasoline?
Really?
Gas is cheap....so you have to drive a mile further just to fill 'er up!
Granny Shulman will fart in your tank for less money. If you don't mind the stink you can get 55 MPG from one burst.
In Flushing you will never notice the extra stink of Shulman's fuel.
Worse than a service station?
Yes. If there's any kind of parking lot here, you'll still have cars pulling in on both sides cutting through to avoid the light. And since this is a commercial strip, it's where "the smell of gasoline" belongs. Would you rather have it next to your house?
Go hate on drivers on someone else's blog.
Support commercial tenant rights. Support the Small Business Jobs Survival Act.
I love cars, driving, and gas stations when they have cheap gas.
What I found amusing is that someone would knock a potential new building as a 'giant pile of crap' when it would be replacing a gas station, hardly visually appealing.
People do not know, study or understand economics, especially within their own personal finances.
The average working household has virtually no retirement savings. I imagine they expect to live on cat food purchased with their Social Security and live in a cardboard box collecting bottles for nickles, if there is even anything left in the so called Social Security "lockbox".
Realize technology, markets and times are changing.
Everyone wants a new car, so they enter into a lease - essentially renting a car for three years, returning the car and staring over with another new car, and so on.
These lease vehicles come with 3 year warranties and service included. This is another reason there are less and less service stations.
Selling gasoline has a very LOW profit margin. Add into this employee theft and turnover, armed robberies, environmental documentation/compliance/permitting and distribution/franchise mandates/requirements. Oh and do not forget rent and property, water/sewer tax. (can you say triple net lease?)
Have you noticed that most repair stations have eliminated selling gasoline? Does it make sense? (rhetorical, but for most of you - YES it does.)
If you have a service station business, and the big loser in the equation is the cost of selling gas, high rent and taxes. It is time to eliminate the waste, (something Government does not do) and either downsize, eliminating the no profit items i.e. selling gasoline, or sell or cut losses and close.
I imaging most here crying about all of this development do not have ten thousand dollars saved for retirement, HOWEVER have a new lease car and the newest Iphone.
The people that are moving their business made a business decision, the landlord did as well. Is raising the rent to market value a crime? In your eyes perhaps, yet everyone wants a pay raise.
The founding of this country was based on "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". This included and was intended/inferred to include the understanding of private property rights with the freedom to do with as you choose. The current property owners are doing what they feel is appropriate to take care of themselves, their family and heirs, not expecting to be beholden to the government to take care of them, using current legal and accepted business practices.
As President Barack Hussein Obama just said, “So often in the past there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate. Those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it really fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory. You should just decide what works,”
Those of you who oppose freedom, taste some cat food, and Go vote for Bernie...
"What I found amusing is that someone would knock a potential new building as a 'giant pile of crap' when it would be replacing a gas station, hardly visually appealing."
It has to be visually appealing to be the preferred option? People in that area need gas. People in that area don't need yet another monstrous project that will strain infrastructure. And it being a corner property, it will be built to the max.
As long as the White Castle on the northwest corner stays put, I don't care.
What's better than Belly Bombers after a long night of partying?
Anonymous said...
As long as the White Castle on the northwest corner stays put, I don't care.
What's better than Belly Bombers after a long night of partying?
.....................................................................................
AND free gas!!! lol
To make matters a little more complicated, the gas station (and buildings to the south) sits on a former pond which was filled in more than 75 years ago at a time when it had dried up due to the aquifer being drawn down over 70 feet below street level.
Today, the water table in many places - particularly former water courses, streams and ponds - is no more than 8 to 10 feet below street level. Any major construction is going to have to deal with that big time.
Paul Graziano
(sarc) had a good point.
Gas has a very, VERY low profit margin.
It made the ridiculous spectacle, early in the BHO years, of oil company executives being called to Capitol Hill to explain the high cost (back then) of gas. One exec finally tried to explain to the (idiot) congressman that most of the cost of a gallon of gas is the taxes imposed by the government! If they wanted to lower the cost of gas they could overnight by cutting the taxes. Of course that fell on deaf ears.
The government has an interest in making business people the villain in their stories and they don't let the FACTS get in the way.
Paul,
Yes in Bayside I have heard of all the problems with the water table from home owners who had to install French drains to remove excess water. Oakland Lake is fed from underground streams that are right under that area of the Gas Station.
More of china coming to a block near you!
Why remove the tanks? Just subdivide and charge rent.
PS: Sarc, thank you for your 250 word Hannity inspired missive. On a website dedicated to curbing overdevelopment, some would say you're wasting your time, eh, wasting your freedom. But keep up the prose, if it makes you feel good.
Gas has a very, VERY low profit margin.
Not for the investment banks that speculate is energy futures.
Falasheng just ran out of space.
Stupid economic lessons notwithstanding has nothing to do with gas, taxes, Bernie or anything other than more space is needed for more people coming in from Asia.
Simple is that.
Kim&Koo are talking about filthy LIRR station next to million dollar condos in Falaheng.
Similar condos in Bayside will be two million dollars with a fairly clean LIRR station.
"What's better than Belly Bombers after a long night of partying?"
Kimchee Jigae
Anon
As long as you enjoyed it!
And perhaps someone may have been slightly enlightened or educated and started a retirement account.
I must commend The Crapper, since I do believe, in most cases, that property owners deserve their God given rights to do with their private property as they choose, (within the law). I am rarely censored and my opinion is allowed a voice here.
OBTW, it is four hundred and seventy four words, but who is counting...
Dear sarc: Well then, in 470 words or less, do you support regulations on overdevelopment or not? What is it you like a about a site whose main theme is restriction on overdevelopment?
You can't have it both ways, but let's hear you try. Let's hear how the invisible hand of economics will fix the alienation of generational families and lawless, overdevelopment of Queens.
I'll separate out your nonsense from actual answers, since I check back here as often as you.
Sarc said: God given rights to private property (within the law).
Exactly what laws were:
1) Graced by the hands of God
or
2) made to superseed God's divine will?
Feel free to be specific and name the exact law. I want to know where my divine rights end, and law begins...
God given rights to private property (within the law).
Hahahaha is not yours. If it was you wouldn't have to pay taxes over and over again ever increasingly.
So the system is setup to cash out and fuck everybody else!
Now that is not a GOD given right.
Happy Easter!
No one is saying the owner shouldn't have the right to do as he pleases with his property. It's just that it's a big loss of service to the neighborhood in one that is very auto-reliant. Gas stations have been closing in Manhattan for years now. But in eastern Queens? Bay terrace Gulf: closed in 2014. The Mobil on Northern in Douglaston: gone as of last year and is now a TD Bank. It's concerning for anyone who drives and lives here, which is most people.
Because if Sandy taught us anything, it's that fewer gas stations are better! ;)
Whoa....wait a minute! Easter Sunday is here but WTF do you know about the mind of G-d or G-d given rights?
Even superior beings from outer space...LOL...acknowledge that the Great Creator is smarter than they are. LOL!
Who would expect metaphysical discourse on Queens Crap? There ya go. This site is soohh great!
I think the average profit on a gallon of gas is around a nickel for the owner but yet the government makes about 70 cents a gallon in tax so how will the lost revenue be made up ? If stations disappear and people drive electric cars.
people drive electric cars.
and where is electricity coming from?
how long to recharge?
there is no free lunch, only the common core educated dumb asses think otherwise.
'people drive electric cars.
and where is electricity coming from?'
Good question. Electric car is a misnomer. There is no such thing. It is a COAL powered car. Where do you think that electricity comes from?
The Volt, The Tesla, They get HUGE government subsidies and would never sell a car if they had to charge what it cost.
We are being force fed this phony industry of crappy vehicles.
Think about it: could you get to work and back in a tesla on the day of the big storm in January?
If you couldn't you just can't buy that car.
Electricity comes from the grid. The grid can be powered by many sources. Coal use is collapsing. Clean up the grid and electric cars can be clean as well. Gas cars... Will always burn gas.
These subsidies you refer to go both ways. But in the end gas is much more heavily subsidized and always has been.
No one is force feeding you anything. Last time I checked we are well on our way to incinerating the globe for a few nickels more. Carry on.
Electricity comes from the grid.
No way. I thought came from space.
So tell us what is the efficiency rate of an electric engine?
Gas is not subsidized is TAXED! WTF are you talking about?
Nice to see you worry about the good old planet, but I have news for you, will be here long after we are gone, just like before us.
"I think the average profit on a gallon of gas is around a nickel for the owner but yet the government makes about 70 cents a gallon in tax so how will the lost revenue be made up ? If stations disappear and people drive electric cars."
BS, is that after they take profits as dividends or after they give themselves huge paychecks? You can drive a few minutes between two BP gas stations and see a 30 cents difference in the same neighborhood. So I guess the one selling for 30 cents less is doing it for charity?
No way. I thought came from space.
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Some of it does actually, and in the long run, technically, it all does.
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