NEW YORK | Arverne East (Beach 32nd-56th Streets)

[Jularc]

This is a huge development happening in the neglected vacant lots in the Far Rockways in Queens... Here is some story from June of 2005...



Wall Street Journal
Cities' Cold, Neglected Waterfronts Catch Building Fever


By Kate Kelly
June 22, 2005

For decades, when the Big Apple began to swelter, working class New Yorker's boarded the train to the Rockaways, where extended families squeezed into tiny beach bungalows for the summer. Fancy resorts and year round homes also populated the peninsula that juts into the Atlantic Ocean in the shadow of John F. Kennedy International Airport.

By the 1970's, when New York rock band the Ramones sang "We can hitch a ride to Rockway Beach," much of the area was rundown and unappealing, even on the hottest days. Now, demand for housing and a shortage of places to build big projects have put the Rockaways back on the map. Two local developers are busy building Arverne by the Sea, an $800 million development on 127 acres of once-neglected land facing the ocean.

Arverne's first two phases, which include 167 two-family homes and 256 condo units, are nearly sold out even though only 32 have been completed. The third phase, which includes 133 two-family homes expects to cost more that $500,000 each, currently has a waiting list of 400 families and construction hasn't even begun.

Year-round waterfront living has long been popular in sunny cities such as Miami and Los Angeles. It now is spreading to some of the nation's oldest and coldest towns, the latest sign that real estate fever and the scarcity of land is prompting developers to take on riskier residential projects. In Boston, new condominiums are popping up along Boston Harbor. In Washington, D.C., developers are starting to lay plans to build housing along the long-neglected Anacostia River. Pittsburgh's Herr's Island, which had been a 42-acre dumping ground full of slaughterhouses and scrap yards, has been transformed by new townhouses. Brooklyn's derelict waterfront was recently rezoned for residential construction.

In many of these places, the waterfront historically had been reserved for industrial purposes, mainly shipping and manufacturing. When those industries declined after World War II, they left behind polluted waterways and toxic sites that eventually turned into dumping grounds. In Philadelphia and Boston, the waterfront was considered prime property, but for highways not homes.

With the amount of developable land in the suburbs and cities in short supply, developers now are rediscovering the waterfront, which is being re-zoned and cleaned up. Cities and states have invested billions of dollars into waste-water treatment.

"The water is cleaner than it has been in a century," says Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a think tank that works on planning and development issues in New York area. "So it means there are now vast areas of waterfront that are empty, available and simply require the appropriate zoning changes."

Even with these changes, building on the water remains a challenge. In New York, for example, waterfront developers must seek clearance from environmental regulators and, in some cases, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That is in addition to the normal plethora of city and state agencies that a developer must appease before construction can begin.

"In the past, developers didn't want to bother," says Les Lerner, co-principal of the Beechwood Organization, which is co-developing Arverne with the Benjamin Cos. Now, he adds, limited space elsewhere means developers have no choice but waterfronts for building large developments such as Arverne by the Sea.

New Yorkers have been coming to Arverne since the 1880's. Throughout the first half of the 1900's, hundreds of bungalows were packed side by side along the sandy streets. With the advent of jet travel, people flew to year-round beach spots and the area began losing its appeal. As the economy declined, the city labeled Arverne an Urban area in the 1960s and tore down the bungalows, leaving large areas totally vacant. Within the past few decades, attempts to develop the land in Arverne fell flat in the face of high costs and community opposition.

Finally, in 1999, a team of consultants hired by the city at the request of the local community board sketched out a plan to build a mixed-use development, which would include residences, retail stores, a school and a supermarket. The city in 2001 selected Beechwood Organization & Benjamin Cos., which operate under Benjamin-Beechwood LLC for this venture, as the designated developers. Plans include 2,300 residential units, a health club with pool, a marina, a charter school and over 200,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.

Lenny Rosenblatt, a 48 year old production manager at a Manhattan communications company, spent summer weekends during the 1960's at Arverne Beach 69th Street, where his grandmother lived. He jumped at the chance to go back, becoming one of the first buyers at Arverne by the Sea when he purchased a $455,000 home with his brother in December 2004.

"It's the closest thing to living in Fort Lauderdale," says Mr Rosenblatt, who already has had several roof deck parties for friends and business associates. "When I come home at night and see the sunset over the ocean, it just takes my breath away."

Although the views are stunning and demand for the early phases of development has been strong. Arverne by the Sea faces numerous hurdles before its planned completion in 2009. The complex sits not far from a group of public housing projects and the location is rather remote, 23 miles away from Manhattan at the end of the A line, New York City's longest subway line. Current residents commuting to Manhattan "have the longest transit commutes in the City," says the Regional Plan Association's Mr. Yaro. "You can get from Wilmington, Del., faster that you can get from the Rockaways."

Boston already has had its share of success with the development of its harbor. Since 1959, the waterfront had effectively been separated from the downtown by the elevated John F. Fitzgerald Expressway, cutting off the area from the city's economic life. The Central Artery/Tunnel Project, also known as the "Big Dig," has opened up the area. The harbor now thrives with high end residential units, parks and retail stores.

Washington has its share of challenges as it attempts to develop land along the banks of the Anacostia River. Often called the "forgotten river," the Anacostia runs from the Maryland suburbs through eastern Washington toward the south. For decades it had been abandoned and polluted, but the city has initiated an $8 billion plan to revitalize the waterfront. A proposed baseball stadium nearby is expected to spawn economic growth for the region.

Many say there is hope for even the most blighted waterfronts. "The trick is to build up some momentum so you can overcome the natural market resistance in those areas that are derelict," says Roger Lewis, a professor of architecture at University of Maryland at College Park. "and a lot of these waterfront areas are derelict."

[Jularc]

Here are some google maps...


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[Jularc]

http://www.arvernebythesea.com/rendered-site-plan-2005.jpg



Project Summary:


Where you live determines how well you live. Choose Arverne by the Sea for your home, and you’ll live as well as possible, regardless of price.

The reason? The planning! Every square inch of this spectacular 117-acre oceanfront site has been meticulously master-planned to anticipate your every possible desire and demand, in terms of privacy and pleasure, comfort and convenience.

For example, take the homes. (And they’re very easy to take.) Your choice will be wide and wonderful. You can select a semi-detached two-family home or a mid-rise condominium home. Each different housing style will have its very own neighborhood, distinctive in both character and architecture.

So far, so good. And it gets better, much better. The residential neighborhoods will be complemented by acres of greenbelts and parklands ... and served by an honest-to-goodness hometown.

The facilities at your disposal will include:

• A new school
• A new accredited day care center
• A major-league community center with indoor pool, Fitness Center, running track, meeting rooms, basketball courts and more
• Hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail stores
• A Transit Plaza to give you instant access to the NYC subway system
• A beautiful boardwalk alongside the ocean

The sum, truly, will be far greater than the parts, and makes Arverne by the Sea more than another place to live. It will be the only place to live, New York City’s new oceanfront hometown.


http://www.arvernebythesea.com/project.htm

[Jularc]

Some of the new stuff that is comming soon...


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[Jularc]

The stuff that has been built... like it or not, this area is getting developed.


http://www.arvernebythesea.com/inside-banner04.jpg (http://www.arvernebythesea.com/)




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[Jularc]

Y not go all the way
Center for Rockaways


BY GREG WILSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
November 10, 2006

A $1.4 billion megadevelopment in the Rockaways is getting a YMCA to go with all the new homes and planned stores, officials announced yesterday.
Mayor Bloomberg joined local leaders and construction honchos at Arverne, a once-neglected beach community, to break ground on the 30,000-square-foot Y.

Hizzoner said the facility will be a community center that pulls the neighborhood together.

"This YMCA will serve this community for years to come," said Bloomberg, adding that the burgeoning development will eventually be a middle-class enclave with more than 4,000 homes and 500,000 square feet of retail space. Arverne by the Sea, the 117-acre first phase, includes about half the housing and could be done by 2009.

"We will help thousands of teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses and other moderate- and middle-income New Yorkers to realize the American Dream of owning their own home," he said.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, who maintains a district office not far from the Rockaway Beach Blvd. and Beach 73rd St. site, said the area is recovering from poor development planning in the 1960s and 1970s.

"For years, when people would come and visit Rockaway and wonder why we haven't done more with our version of the Riviera, the answer was usually because we did not have the right type of development here," Weiner said. He praised the current plan for its mix of housing, commercial and recreation space.

The two-story YMCA will feature an indoor pool, basketball courts, a gym, day camps and child-care services. Officials say it will provide services for 10,000 people.

"While we offer our Virtual Y after-school program in Far Rockaway's PS 197 and PS 256, this YMCA center will be our first permanent, physical branch in the area," said YMCA of Greater New York CEO Jack Lund.

It's the latest step forward for the Arverne Urban Renewal Area, which is bounded by Beach 32nd St., Beach 81st St., Rockaway Freeway and the Rockaway Boardwalk. Development of Arverne by the Sea and the second phase, Arverne East, includes $1.35 billion in private investment, according to Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff.

Arverne by the Sea developer Benjamin-Beechwood, LLC already has built 484 residential units, over half of which are affordable to households making no more than $92,170 for a family of four.

The 97-acre Arverne East will be developed by the Bluestone Organization, L&M Equity Participants and Triangle Equities, and will consist of 47 acres of housing and commercial space, a 35-acre nature preserve and a 15-acre dune preserve. Nearly 1,600 units of middle-income housing will be built at the Arverne East site.

Doctoroff said the developments are good examples of his boss' plan to encourage a wide spectrum of new housing throughout the five boroughs, especially in areas builders once left for dead.

"By transforming vacant land into diverse, vibrant neighborhoods, the city is providing more quality housing and new economic opportunities for middle-income New Yorkers," Doctoroff said.


All contents © 2006 Daily News, L.P.

[danger_doug]

Was down there a while back for NY Cares day. To begin with, it's a crying shame how run down it's gotten. You could see the amazing faded glory of the bungalows, even as they were getting plowed under for developments like this. Next is how horrible the projects are, just killing the warmth of the seaside with their incongruous scale... these seem to be about right, tho it is bizarre how they are stacked up one against another with huge empty lots right next door....

[liat91]

Might seem heartless, but get rid of about half of those housing projects and the area will boom like you wouldn't believe.

[NYguy]

how horrible the projects are, just killing the warmth of the seaside with their incongruous scale... these seem to be about right, tho it is bizarre how they are stacked up one against another with huge empty lots right next door....

Putting so many highrise pojects in one area was a major mistake in planning by the City. For years the City has been trying, unsuccessfully to do something with that valuable, yet isolated land. That Avalon-by-the-Sea development turned out to be pretty successful. It may not look like its in the City, but it is.

[danger_doug]

Given the popularity of the water taxi beach and the new trend towards "staying in the city," a beach house rental on the A Train has a lot of possibility. Too far to live though...

[antinimby]

I don't understand this too far thing. Too far from what, Manhattan?

Who says everyone has to go to Manhattan to work? Couldn't people go to work in another part of Queens or Long Island instead?

[NYguy]

blurb from curbed.com

Development Robbing Rockaways of Post-Apocalyptic Feel

http://www.curbed.com/2006_11_Arverne.jpg


The big project known as Arverne--which is going up on a desolate stretch of beachfront in the Rockaways that has given the Queens beach a post-apocalyptic feel since the 60s--took another step forward yesterday. Ground was broken yesterday on a 30,000-square-foot Y.M.C.A., which is significant in the sense that it's part of a bigger plan to add big supermarket, a new school and other retail and amenities to the area.

Arverne is a 308-acre project that is slowly going up in a 50-block stretch cleared by the city in 1964. (Who was behind the demolition? Hint: His last name was Moses.) The city designated the Bluestone Organization, L & M Equity and Triangle Equities to develop the Arverne East part of the project, which will be 1,600 units of housing on 97 acres including a 35 acre "nature preserve" and 14 acres of dunes. Overall, it's a $1.5 billion project stretching from Beach 32nd to Beach 81st street.

[danger_doug]

antinimby: They could work elsewhere in Brooklyn of Queens, but Far Rockaway is well named-- it's far and not near any of the City's business hubs-- especially on mass transit.

It's initial purpose was in fact a beach community the hamptons for the masses. I think it has potential now for a similar purpose...

[hoosier]

From an outsiders' perspective, this is great to read. Converting neglected areas into prime residential properties gives the city incentive to clean up the environment and improve the area's infrastructure. If all cities re-converted their brownzones into residential/commerical areas, there would be no need for suburban sprawl.

[Jularc]

Rockaways Journal
In Faded Beach Community Seeking Rebirth, Projects and Luxury Homes Meet


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Gang fights have plagued the Hammel public housing project, which abuts the upscale Arverne by the Sea
development in the Rockaways.


By COREY KILGANNON
January 7, 2007

In a gritty section of the Rockaways, there is a cluster of new homes that stand out for their catchy colors and modern style. They are laid out in neat clusters with cheery nautical names like Ocean Breeze, The Sands and The Breakers, and there are newly mapped streets with names like Spinnaker Drive.

This is the early phase of the mammoth Arverne by the Sea development, a heralded project to make over a mostly blighted stretch of the Rockaway peninsula into 2,300 homes and condominiums.

There are snazzy showroom apartments with stunning ocean views, and a warm-and-fuzzy short film featuring families frolicking on the beach. The promotional material makes no mention of the surrounding low-income area of meager houses, shabby bungalows and public housing projects, but rather urges potential buyers to “imagine the serenity of living in an oceanfront community.”

That serenity has been interrupted in recent weeks by gunshots from the nearby projects, a spate of violence that has left three young men from the projects dead.

Some community leaders and elected officials say the violence is sparked by an escalating conflict turf war between gangs at several of the housing projects.

“This is a gang war between housing projects,” said Councilman James Sanders Jr., who has met with the police and community leaders.

The unrest has also worried officials at the Benjamin-Beechwood company, which is building the Arverne development. The 117-acre development stretches into low-income, primarily black neighborhoods that include the Ocean Bay Houses, a public housing complex formerly known as the Edgemere Houses, and the Hammel Houses, which abut the western edge of the development.

Though the Rockaways were once a popular beach resort, the expanse of trash-strewn lots that overlook pristine beaches has remained undeveloped for decades. It is premium oceanfront real estate accessible to Manhattan, but it is also a low-income area with few amenities and high crime rates. These are challenges the developer counts on overcoming in building two-family oceanfront homes costing up to $1 million.

A company official, Gerry Romski, said that police officials from the 100th Precinct assured him that extra police units had been brought in to help patrol the projects and that “the situation was under control.”

“These seem to be isolated incidents limited to the housing projects, the Hammels and Edgemere Houses,” Mr. Romski said. “We have not been impacted in any way. We’ve increased the security guards around our buildings, and there have been no incidents.”

The shootings, which received meager attention in the news media, have not affected the brisk sales of the units, he said. Roughly 500 of the planned 2,300 units are completed, he said, and most of those are occupied.

Eric Rasmussen, 26, a city firefighter, recently moved into the Coral House, an apartment building that is part of the Arverne development. It overlooks Building 10 of the Hammel project, the site of one of the shootings. “You definitely hear gunshots over there pretty regularly,” Mr. Rasmussen said. “But I don’t consider it dangerous.”

Mr. Sanders calls the violence and the ensuing response by developers — initial panic, then relief that it did not affect their development — a microcosm of “exactly what is wrong here in the Rockaways.”

Mr. Sanders contends that development officials are “trying to build a self-contained city” while ignoring the surrounding community and its ills: unemployment, gangs, guns, drugs and troubled schools.

“We’re going to be stuck with a tale of two cities,” Mr. Sanders said. “They’re creating the conditions for a perfect storm of racial discontent and possibly more violence.

“This situation cannot be dealt with by simply increasing security and police and arresting and imprisoning more young people.”

Community leaders have long complained that the Rockaways have been a dumping ground for the city’s poor. The residents of the housing projects, an overwhelming majority of them black, have few nearby job opportunities, social and youth and parolee services. They complain of being isolated on the peninsula.

Mr. Sanders said the recent violence stemmed from turf battles between gang members at the Ocean Bay Houses, the Hammel Houses and the Redfern Houses, which are farther east, in Far Rockaway.

On Nov. 27, Christopher Glenn, 16, of the Ocean Bay Houses, was shot and killed. On Dec. 15, another teenager, Cedric Smalls, 18, was fatally shot in front of Building 10 of the Hammel Houses. Four days later, Laton Spurgeon, 25, an Ocean Bay resident, was killed.

Last week, Jamel Bryant, 17, who the police say is a Bloods street gang member with a street name of Psycho, was arrested at the Ocean Bay Houses after firing eight bullets at police officers, the department said.

Mr. Smalls was one of 11 children of Cynthia Young and had moved with six of his siblings from the Hammel Houses into the apartment of his grandmother, Algia Young, 71, a block away. His grandmother said Cedric kept hanging out with his friends in the project, but he denied being in a gang.

“I used to check his backpack and go through his pockets every night to see if he was up to anything,” she said. “He was a good kid.”

She looked out her window toward the Arverne development and said, “How they going to build that thing when they can’t even take care of the community now?”

But Mr. Romski said the development had good relations with its neighbors and would benefit the rest of the Rockaways by bringing jobs, shopping and recreational facilities.

He said the development would bridge communities by serving as a link between poorer black areas of Far Rockaway and wealthier white sections such as Breezy Point, Neponsit and Belle Harbor. Arverne by the Sea is attracting many retailers, he said, and a new Y.M.C.A. center on the property will be open to outside residents.

“This project is going to pull up the rest of the community,” he said.


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Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[SLC Projects]

The stuff that has been built... like it or not, this area is getting developed.


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Nice. :tup:

[Grego43]

A vast improvement to be sure...albeit uninspired. Some mature landscaping would help soften the stark look of some of the construction.

[Hypothalamus]

NEW YORK | Arverne East (Beach 32nd-56th Streets)

NY Daily News:

Arverne East development could get a jump start this year with housing and retail plan (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/project-arverne-east-start-year-article-1.1764108)
City Councilman Donovan Richards says affordable housing must be part of any Arverne East plan

BY LISA L. COLANGELO
Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 2:00 AM

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1764107.1398122174!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_1200/arverne22q-1-web.jpg?enlarged
CHRISTIE M FARRIELLA/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
City Councilman Donovan Richards discusses potential plans at the Arverne East redevelopment site located on stretch of land along the beach between Beach 56th Street and Beach 32 Street in Rockaway.

This could be the year that Arverne East finally comes alive.

City Councilman Donovan Richards said he is pushing the city — and prodding developers — to move ahead with plans to build affordable housing and retail on a portion of the dormant 80-acre site in Rockaway.

“We’re at a pinnacle time here,” said Richards (D-Laurelton). “Mayor de Blasio has set a (city-wide) goal of 200,000 affordable units and the developer is in a good place.”

Richards said he is meeting with officials from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development on Tuesday to discuss the project’s future.

He is optimistic that shovels could be in the ground within the year.

Richards is insistent that affordable housing be included in any plan — saying it could be on a sliding scale that would include teachers, firefighters and police officers.

“We don’t want the beach gentrified,” he said.

Community Board 14 officials, who had originally argued the local economy needed a boost from pricier market-rate housing, said they are not opposed to affordable housing.

The Arverne East site was cleared as part of urban renewal plans of the late 1960s. But various plans to build on the site never materialized. The latest project calls for a mix of housing and commercial development as well as a nature preserve.

“We want mostly homeownership, condos and houses so that they have a vested interest in the community,” said Jonathan Gaska, the district manager of Community Board 14. “We are willing to have a conversation about affordable housing, but everyone is talking around us and not to us.”

The urban renewal area was cleared more than 40 years ago, leaving valuable beachfront property between Beach 56th St. and Beach 32nd St.

But a series of ambitious plans to develop housing, commercial space and even a sports and entertainment complex failed to materialize

In 2007, the city reached an agreement with L+M Development, Bluestone Organization and Triangle Equities to develop the site, but that plan was waylaid by the economic downturn. And then, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated the peninsula.

Construction in areas closer to the water are still a way’s off because roads and other important infrastructure will need to be built, said Ron Moelis, the CEO of L&M, but that doesn’t mean the whole project must be stalled.

“There’s some land on the Edgemere side that already has infrastructure in place,” Moelis said. “We can build some housing and retail there."

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CHRISTIE M FARRIELLA/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The Arverne East site was cleared as part of urban renewal plans of the late 1960s. But various plans to build on the site never materialized. The latest project calls for a mix of housing and commercial development as well as a nature preserve.

[chris08876]

Hey Hypothalamus, do you know when De Blasio will make that speech unveiling his housing plan? Or did he already make such a speech?

[Hypothalamus]

DNAinfo NY:

Arverne East Plan Includes 'Anti-Gentrification' Stores and Nature Preserve (http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140523/arverne/arverne-east-plan-includes-anti-gentrification-stores-nature-preserve)
By Katie Honan on May 23, 2014 11:12am

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Photo credit: DNAinfo/Katie Honan

FAR ROCKAWAY — A new plan for long-vacant Arverne East includes "gentrification-proof" stores that are owned by businesses instead of being leased, a nature preserve and a forest, officials said.

Construction on a new vocational school, the first element of the plan, could start as early as next June on the 80-acre stretch of land, which has been empty for decades. But the plans still faces major hurdles like a lack of infrastructure and funding.

Local Office Landscape Architecture, run by Walter Meyer and Jennifer Bolstad, was hired to create a new version of the plan, including a mixed-use community with 1,199 residential units, a 154,000 square-foot commercial space including a supermarket and storefronts Meyer called "gentrification-proof" because the businesses would be able to own their buildings.

[...]

The new plan also features a 50-acre nature preserve, including bioswales and a forest to protect the peninsula from future storms, that would help provide jobs for locals.

[...]

The White Arkitekter plan didn't precisely follow the original RFP for the site, Bluestone said, and created a nature preserve that was smaller.

The peninsula will be protected by the forest and other design features, Meyer said, and would also feature a bike share program from the Beach 44th Street subway station that connects to the boardwalk.

The development of Arverne East, which has been vacant since the 1960s, is being spearheaded by L+M Development Partners, The Bluestone Organization and Triangle Equities, which have owned the land since 2006.

[...]

Ron Moelis, who runs L+M Partners, said there are major infrastructure issues — mainly that there isn't anything on the site.

"Funding, funding, funding," was also a major issue, he said. The land is currently owned by the city and he hoped for cooperation from the current administration in securing the money needed for development.

"This is a blank canvas," he said, and could be tied into Mayor Bill de Blasio's 10-year, $41 billion plan to create 80,000 units of affordable housing.

"This can be a model for the de Blasio administration."