A Long Island City warehouse near the waterfront may soon give rise to a residential tower.
By: Greg Gansworth
A two-story warehouse and an adjacent parking lot at 2-33 50th Avenue has been placed on the market. That means the site could be purchased and developed in one of the hottest housing development markets in the city.
JLL and chairman of New York investment sales Bob Knakal have been tapped to market and peddle the property.
According not published reports, the site in question is able to accommodate more than 440,000 square feet of new space. Thus far, it has no sale price, but insiders say they expect it go for an amount in the tens of millions.
“It’s the best development site available in Queens right now,” Knakal told Crain’s New York Business. the edifice in question is located inside an opportunity zone where, among other things, capital gains can be sheltered from taxation. “There will be a lot of interest both from the development community and from opportunity-zone buyers,” he added.
“The site sits a block from the Vernon Boulevard subway station on the No. 7 line, offering a close connection to Manhattan and, Knakal noted, the Hudson Yards development, which opened this year,” Crain’s reported. “There’s over 80,000 jobs being created in the Hudson Yards and the 7 train is the only public transit link to the neighborhood,” Knakal said. “Living in this neighborhood, with such a great connection, is almost as good as being able to walk to work.”
The site’s zoning reportedly permits approximately 420,000 square feet of residential space. Knakal told Crain’s that the remaining square footage could be community space or retail. “The property sits among a cluster of large residential spires built along the East River in Long Island City over the past decade. Knakal said nearly all of the rental and condo apartments in the area have been absorbed and that recent years have seen a lull in new development in that particular. “There’s an air bubble in the supply of new apartments here,” Knakal said. “A developer could take advantage of that with this site.”
JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated) itself is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. The Fortune 500 company has annual revenue of $16.3 billion, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of over 91,000.
