Developer wants city to pay for new NYC ferry dock by their luxury tower in Astoria

THE CITY

 A developer wants the city to extend a ferry line by one stop to connect Astoria with the Upper East Side – at public expense.

The Durst Organization recently opened the first tower in a planned seven-building residential complex in Astoria, about a 10-minute walk from the neighborhood’s ferry terminal.

The ferry route currently runs from Wall Street to 34th Street, with subsequent stops at Long Island City, Roosevelt Island and Astoria. The Durst Organization is calling for the line to stretch back over the East River, ending at the 90th Street ferry terminal in Yorkville.

“It’s about 1,000 feet between the two ferry stops. The trip would take less than five minutes,” said Jordan Barowitz, a Durst spokesperson.

Barowitz stressed the proposal was preliminary. He added the developer would rely on the New York 

City Economic Development Corporation to pick up the tab.

The Astoria-to-Upper East Side proposition comes as budget watchdogs scrutinize ferry subsidies amounting to $10.73 per ride. City Comptroller Scott Stringer has demanded the city move the ferry operation out of EDC’s purview following THE CITY’s reporting that taxpayers are on the hook for as much as $369 million in ferry purchases.

The developer plans to float the proposal before a Manhattan community board Wednesday before making a formal pitch to the Economic Development Corporation, which oversees the city’s ferry service.

For Durst, an impetus for the plan is to improve transit options for residents within its planned 2,400-unit Astoria development, Halletts Point, which opened its first tower to tenants earlier this year.

There should be no more debate about what this service was tailor made for.

Temporary cultural center coming to Hallets Point site

From The Real Deal:

While part of the project remains stalled over a funding squabble with the city, the Durst Organization plans to temporarily make use of another site at its Hallets Point development in Queens.

The developer plans to set up a temporary cultural center where the final phase of the mixed-use project will eventually rise, at 27th Avenue and 1st Street, said Durst spokesperson Jordan Barowitz. The 30,000-square-foot space will include a stage and a fenced off area for film, dance, music and other events, he said.

“Hallets is something of a blank slate, and we want to start to highlight the cultural and arts community in Astoria,” Barowitz said. “It’s the final phase of the project so construction is a few years away. The views it has of Lower Manhattan, it would be a shame not to activate it.”

The cultural center is expected to open sometime this summer.

Meanwhile, a 163-unit affordable housing project planned for the development’s second phase is being held up by a lack of funding. In January, the city Housing Development Corporation pulled $43.5 million in bond financing for the project.

Halletts Point funding yanked by BDB

From Politico:

Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration abruptly and inexplicably halted funding for an affordable housing project in Astoria last fall, months after he and the developer, Douglas Durst, had a public argument over campaign donations.

The city's Housing Development Corporation was planning to issue $43.5 million in financing for a 163-unit development that is part of the sprawling Hallets Point project Durst is constructing in Queens. This particular building is planned for tenants earning up to 60 percent of the area median income, which amounts to $51,540 for a three-person household.

But the corporation pulled it from its agenda just days before its Nov. 17 meeting and reallocated the bonding authority, POLITICO recently learned.

The shift doesn't only impact the building in question and the seven-building, mixed-income Hallets project. It also stalls Durst's agreement to spruce up the grounds of the New York City Housing Authority's Astoria Houses development on which the building would be erected, and retrofit four boilers.

"Three days prior to HDC board approval for our 100 percent affordable building's bond financing, we were notified that the bonds were no longer available to us," Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz said on Tuesday. "We have not heard from City Hall since then, and until we do, the future of the project is unknown."

Asked for an explanation, a city spokeswoman said projects are competing for tax-exempt bonds that many fear are under threat from federal cuts. The financing tool is always, however, a limited resource sought by competing projects.

She also pointed out this particular project would support other market-rate apartments in the Hallet’s development, even though this building would be entirely for low-income tenants.

63-story skyscraper next to clock tower

From the Queens Gazette:

The Durst Organization has filed plans to develop a 63-story tower in a lot next door to the landmarked Clock Tower Building at Queens Plaza in Long Island City.

The new tower will feature 763 residential units and a public park, plans show. The Durst Organization acquired the parcel from Property Markets Group in December 2016 for $173.5 million., contingent on the renewal of the New York State 421-a tax program that offers tax breaks to developers in exchange for the creation of affordable housing.

State lawmakers approved a new version of the program in spring 2017. Under the program, developers will set aside at least 28 per cent of the Durst tower’s 763 apartments as affordable housing.

An item on the Real Deal website in December said developer Kevin Maloney, of Property Markets Group, indicated that an acquisition note on the clock tower project was coming due, so he felt it was time to sell the property.

The new, 63-story Super Tower will rise 710-feet from ground level and will feature 8,702-square-feet of retail space, according to the plans.

The Durst Organization is not planning any changes to the Clock Tower building, which was awarded landmark status by the city in 2015, a spokesperson for the Durst Organization said.

Similar project, different fate?

From the Times Ledger:

The Durst Organization is moving forward with its Hallets Point mega-project in Astoria now that a replacement for the 421-a tax abatement for developers is in place. The newly branded Affordable New York housing program will provide tax breaks to developers in exchange for desperately needed affordable housing.

When the original program expired in January 2016, one day after Mayor Bill de Blasio helped break-ground for the $1.5 billion complex, Durst scaled back its plans for seven buildings with 2,400 units, 484 of them affordable, to just one building with 163 units. The latter amount was what had been financed before 421-a expired. With a new deal hammered out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, The Real Estate Board of New York, and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York that expands the production of affordable housing and provides fair wages for construction workers, Hallets Point has received the green light.

“The passing of ‘Affordable New York’ allows the Hallets Point project to continue,” Durst Organization spokesman Jordan Barowitz said. “We are full steam ahead.”

Lawsuit over Clock Tower

From Curbed:

Last December, the development site behind Long Island City’s landmarked Clock Tower sold for $173.5 million to the Durst Organization. The beneficiaries of that sale were the previous owners of the site, Property Markets Group (PMG) and the Hakim Organization, who once intended for a massive skyscraper to rise at the site.

Now real estate developer Brad Zackson is suing PMG for not moving forward with a development plan on the site, alleging that he helped put the development parcels together, and would have eventually profited from its construction, The Real Deal reports.

Zackson reportedly introduced Hakim to the site in Long Island City, and Hakim in turn brought on PMG to purchase and develop the L-shaped parcel of properties around the Clock Tower into Queens’s tallest residential building.

Plans at one time called for a 77-story tower with 800 apartments, but by last summer, PMG and Hakim were looking to sell the one million square foot site. This, Zackson alleges, is because PMG did not do everything in its power to move the rental and condo project forward.

LIC Clock Tower owners sell parcel next door

From the NY Times:

Things are getting choppy in New York’s once-rocketing residential real estate market.

Last week, the developers of what was planned as the city’s tallest tower outside of Manhattan gave up and sold their site next to the historic clock tower building in Queens Plaza to the Durst Organization for $173.5 million.

The developers, Kevin Maloney and Kamran Hakim, spent nearly three years buying land in Long Island City for the $750 million skyscraper. But, Mr. Maloney said in an interview this week, “we didn’t have the horsepower to get it done.”

The Dursts said they would erect a rental tower that may be just as tall as Mr. Maloney had planned, 914 feet.

The sale was the latest evidence that things are getting more difficult for developers: The market for high-end condominiums and rental apartments has slowed, costs have gone up and construction loans have been harder to get as dozens of new buildings open in neighborhoods throughout the city.

Shocking news: Developers head streetcar organization

From LIC post:

Some of the names behind the push for a new streetcar system between Queens and Brooklyn will sound familiar to western Queens residents, due to major projects they are developing here.

The Friend of the Brooklyn-Queens Connector (BQX) – which has been working on the Connector plan since 2014 – has released its board of directors list (online here).

That list includes some big players in Astoria and Long Island City development.

Tishman Speyer is represented on the Friends of the BQX board by public affairs managing director Michelle Adams, who is also a member of the Long Island City Partnership board. Tishman Speyer is the developer behind 2 Gotham Center at Queens Plaza South and 28th Street and is also working on a two-tower commercial building next door.

Jordan Barowitz of the Durst Organization, which is developing the Hallets Point megaproject on the Astoria Waterfront, also sits on the BQX board. The $1 billion project involves more than 2,000 units of housing, plus a supermarket and a school. The development broke ground in January.

He's doing it for his donors

From the NY Post:

Hundreds of businesses that own land near the proposed Brooklyn-Queens trolley line stand to benefit from the project, but at least 10 have something else in common — they all contributed to a nonprofit promoting Mayor de Blasio’s “progressive” agenda.

The estimated $2.5 billion rail project, which would connect Astoria to Sunset Park and promises to send property values along its route soaring, is being pushed by the Friends of Brooklyn Queens Connector.

Developers such as Two Trees Management, Forest City Ratner and the Durst Organization all have representatives in the group and have either directed money to de Blasio’s re-election campaign or to the Campaign for One New York, which critics have derided as a mayoral slush fund.

2 huge Astoria projects may never happen

From the Queens Tribune:

But was this really done right? No less than a week after the ground breaking of Hallets Point affordable housing, the developer said that most of the project is effectively on hold because of the expiration of the tax break known as 421-a, according to reports.

Jonathan Durst, the president of The Durst Organization, was quoted in a NY1 article saying, “We’re cleared with 421-a on the first phase, but if 421-a becomes unavailable, those remaining four or five phases won’t be built.”

The 421-a tax break creates a real estate tax break and property tax break in exchange for providing a significant amount of affordable housing.

Jordan Barowitz, vice president and director of external affairs for The Durst Organization, confirmed Durst’s statement saying that the first phase of the project is under an old 80/20 housing program, which the Housing Finance Agency offers as a tax exempt financing to multi-family rental developments in which at least 20 percent of the units are set aside for very low-income residents by using funds raised through the sale of bonds.

Barowitz explained that the project can not go through until this issue is fixed because there is currently no plan covering the next few phases.

Another affordable housing project that was supposed to be under the 421-a tax break is Astoria Cove. While there have been rumors that the Astoria Cove project is no longer in the works, Alma Realty – the developers of the project – say that the project is still moving forward and the land will continue to be used for Astoria Cove. There is still no date on when the project will be completed.

Massive Astoria waterfront project gets underway

From DNA Info:

The massive Hallets Point development will break ground this week on the Astoria waterfront after years of planning, according to the developer behind the project.

The Durst Organization will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for the $1 billion project that will be built over the next seven years on a 7-acre parcel of land along the East River near 26th Avenue, First and Second streets.

It will have seven buildings containing more than 2,000 apartments, 20 percent of them affordable, as well as 68,000-square-feet of retail space with a supermarket, a waterfront esplanade and space for a school, according to the plans.

Astoria megaprojects in jeopardy

From the Daily News:

Councilman Costa Constantinides said that he doesn’t support the luxury Astoria Cove project in its current form, as the project moves toward a vote that hinges on his support.

“The current proposal includes ‘affordable’ apartments that will actually be too expensive for the area and doesn’t capture what real Astorians need,” Constantinides said Wednesday. “I cannot support the proposal as it currently sits with the Council.”

Due to New York’s high average incomes, rents for "affordable" one-bedroom apartments in the complex could go as high as $2,700.

“That is an option under the existing zoning text that I find is a poision pill,” said Constantinides.

Constantinides said Alma Realty has yet to up the quotient of affordable housing in the course of their negotiations.

"We’re continuing to talk to them," he said. "There is an opportunity for us to get there."

From The Real Deal:

A real estate investor that owns the last of three pieces that the Durst Organization needs to develop a $1.5 billion project in Astoria known as Hallets Point is holding out beyond the original September closing date, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the megaproject.

In 2007, The Isaac Deutsch-led Astoria Equities 2000 signed a contract with New Jersey-based Lincoln Equities Group to sell the property, located at 1-02 26th Avenue between First and Second streets, for $7.5 million. The sale was slated to close on September 15 of this year, but is yet to close.

The dispute could delay the massive 2.5 million-square-foot project that the Douglas Durst-led Durst Organization is spearheading at Hallets Point, where it plans to develop residential towers with 2,400 market-rate and affordable units.

Giant Manhattan developer takes over Astoria megaproject

From Curbed:

Earlier this week, the Durst Organization bought the long-awaited development site at Hallets Point, paying "well over $100 million" for a 90 percent stake in the Astoria megaproject.

The Hallets Point development has been in the works for years, and developer Lincoln Equities finally got the greenlight from the city last fall. All told, the project will have 1,921 apartments (plus 483 affordable units), spread across seven buildings. The plans also call for an esplanade, a school and retail space, including a supermarket. Interestingly, the New York City Housing Authority struck a deal that will allow the developer to build and operate two affordable buildings on the grounds of Astoria Houses, the nearby public housing complex.

So the affordable housing will be on the grounds of the projects and the council went for this?? ROFLMAO!!!