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From
QNS:
Earlier this month, Long Island City residents rallied against a proposal to develop two city-owned lots along the waterfront. But developers are arguing that their plan was made with the community in mind.
Last July, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that TF Cornerstone was chosen to develop two sites that sit on 44th Drive. The plan includes 1,000 units of housing, an elementary school, manufacturing and commercial space, a performance space and waterfront access.
Almost immediately after the plan was announced, residents began to express their disappointment at Community Board 2 meetings, through a petition and a rally held on March 3.
Since the land is publicly owned, residents feel that they should have been consulted before the city finalized any plans. According to the LIC Coalition, the group that created the petition, residents want a portion of the land to be turned into a wetland park. Since the sites sit in a flood zone, they argue that constructing large buildings would make the land vulnerable.
Residents also want to see a community recreation center, “school seats, artist and light manufacturing space, a cultural center, a climate change educational center, job training, space for NGOs and other community benefits,” the petition said.
From
LIC Post:
The city’s current plan to bring a massive mixed-use project on public land along the Hunters Point waterfront has been rejected by Long Island City’s elected leaders.
Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer and Assemblymember Cathy Nolan say that the Economic Development Corp’s plan to build 1,000 residential units (25 percent affordable) in two towers scaling over 500 feet by 44th Drive and Vernon Boulevard is simply unacceptable.
“I think it needs to be re-envisioned,” Van Bramer said of the 4.5 acre proposal, which also includes a public school, a park, and industrial and commercial space. “This project as it stands is perhaps the dream of some people in City Hall, but it is not one that I share.”
Van Bramer added that the community’s concerns over green space, recreation, the number of affordable units, and the overall density of the project are valid. “What the community is saying, and what I’m saying, too, is for too long the city has not paid attention to the infrastructure needs of LIC,” he said.
Nolan said the development is “too massive” and fails to take the repeatedly-raised needs of the community into consideration.
From
LIC Post:
The city’s decision to appoint a for-profit developer to build 1,000 high-rise apartments on public land along the Long Island City waterfront was universally panned by residents at last week’s Community Board 2 meeting.
Earlier this summer, the city—through the Economic Development Corp– announced that it had selected TF Cornerstone, the Manhattan-based real estate firm, to develop a 4.5 acre site near 44th Drive and 5th Street. The project could bring 1,000 apartments, 400,000-square-feet of commercial space, and a school for 600 students at an estimated cost of $925 million. One-quarter of the apartments will be classified as “affordable.”
Residents who spoke at CB2’s monthly meeting in Sunnyside on Thursday said there was little need for more high-end, luxury towers in Hunters Point, especially when they’d be built on city-owned land by a for-profit developer.
Several residents said the site should be converted into a park.
From
Crains:
One of the final large-scale projects of the Bloomberg administration is languishing on the Queens waterfront despite its having been approved three and a half years ago. But there are signs that the development may finally be moving forward.
TF Cornerstone was selected in December 2013 to build a 1,197-unit apartment complex as part of the Hunters Point South complex on the Long Island City coast. Such projects typically take two or three years to complete, yet this one's design hasn't been finalized.
Sources with knowledge of the development told Crain's that delays piled up because of the tangle of utility lines and a train tunnel that run beneath the site. The complications of accommodating these subterranean obstacles was not initially apparent and led TF Cornerstone to alter its design of the building last year.
"The plan changed, and it needed to change based on what they discovered underneath the site," City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer said at the time.
But changing the blueprints was not enough. Both Amtrak, which owns the rail tunnel running beneath the East River, and the New York Power Authority, which controls underground electrical lines, must also sign off on an agreement covering the building's design and construction to ensure no harm comes to their infrastructure.
Negotiations with Amtrak began more than two years ago, a spokesman for the rail line said, and are ongoing. However, project insiders said that a resolution is nearly at hand and other aspects of the project are now moving forward rapidly, suggesting that the building may get off the ground early next year.
From
Crains:
A Manhattan-based developer has reconfigured its planned 1,197-unit Hunters Point South apartment complex after learning an Amtrak tunnel and power lines ran under the city-owned project site, Crain's has learned. As part of the new design, developer TF Cornerstone will include a 600-seat school for the rapidly growing neighborhood on the Queens waterfront.
In 2013, the Bloomberg administration selected the developer and nonprofit partner Selfhelp to build an ODA Architects-designed residential project, including 700 affordable apartments, on part of the Queens peninsula dubbed Hunters Point South.
Nearly two and a half years later, though, blueprints have yet to be finalized. Amtrak and the New York Power Authority have been negotiating with TF Cornerstone since March 2015 to ensure construction doesn't damage the rail tunnel or the power lines.
It is not clear why the underground infrastructure took the developers by surprise, given that plans for the peninsula released in 2008 indicated whoever controlled the site would have to build around multiple easements.
From
Crains:
In a possible harbinger of a new political climate facing residential developers in the city under an increasingly activist city government, the new Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, several City Council members and the powerful building workers union 32BJ SEIU will rally outside of the Manhattan offices of residential developer TF Cornerstone Wednesday afternoon demanding changes in the way it treats workers at its buildings.
32BJ SEIU has long been at odds with TF Cornerstone, the developer that had built up much of the Long Island City waterfront in recent years, and which was recently selected by the city to develop the second phase of Hunters Point South just to the south of its earlier towers. The union has alleged the developer's treatment of some of its building service workers is not up to the union's standards, and has demanded that the developer adopt industry-wide benchmarks for pay and benefits, something the developer said it has already done.
"TF Cornerstone pays its building workers equal or better-than union wages at all of its residential properties around New York City," a spokesman for the developer said.
Although this is not the first clash between the union and the developer, Wednesday's rally, which called for "a new day for development," is now taking place in a more liberal administration, which some in the Progressive Caucus, including City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Queens), said bodes well for labor's cause.
"I think there is progressive moment in the city of New York that is reflected in Mayor [Bill] de Blasio, Speaker [Melissa] Mark-Viverito and folks like myself," said Mr. Van Bramer, the Council's majority leader who was set to attend the rally. "I definitely feel like there is a lot of momentum when it comes to us making sure that government projects come with an affordable housing component, and also that labor is at the table."
From
Crain's:
A crane operator and a contractor didn't inspect equipment, failed to take proper precautions and ran the rig unsafely before it collapsed while building a New York City apartment tower and injured seven construction workers, officials said Wednesday.
Crane operator Paul Geer and contractor Cross Country Construction have each been cited with five violations stemming from the Jan. 9 collapse, which occurred as the crane tried to lift more than double its capacity, the city Buildings Department said. Mr. Geer and the company each face at least $64,000 in fines; the developer and a site safety manager also were cited with a violation apiece.
The developer, TF Cornerstone, and site safety manager Arthur Covelli have been cited with failing to safeguard people and property during construction, a single violation that carries at least $2,400 in fines, officials said.
Buildings Department records showed crane work at the site remained halted Wednesday, but TF Cornerstone said it believed the stop-work order and violation were being resolved. The company has said "site safety is always our first priority."
From
Crains:
TF Cornerstone recently closed on a $265 million construction loan for what will be the developer's largest luxury rental tower along the East River in Long Island City, Queens. The 820-unit, 40-story tower will be the second to last building to rise in the former industrial area that once housed a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant, among others. When complete, the developer's 20-acre waterfront development, simply dubbed East Coast, will boast a total of more than 3,000 apartments.
TF Cornerstone expects to fetch rents in the high-$40s per square foot to low-$50s per square foot for apartments at 4615 Center Blvd., according to Mr. Shell. The developer expects to close on financing and begin construction on the final 585-unit rental project building in East Coast, which will go up at 4610 Center Blvd., by the first half of 2012.
