NEW YORK | Silvercup West | 600 FT | 537 FT | 517 FT

[NYguy]

Time to take another look at this waterfront development..

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,23,1247,1249.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/env_review/silvercup_west/ch01_feis.pdf


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0037_design_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0037_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0004_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0038_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0009_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0040_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0041_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0025_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0032_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0033_1_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0034_1_w.jpg

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/env_review/silvercup.shtml

[BayRidgeFever]

Wow, I never saw all those sharp renderings before. These buildings will be fantastic!

[NYguy]

Wow, I never saw all those sharp renderings before. These buildings will be fantastic!

Yeah, its looking better than ever. You can see from some of the renderings (though with no detail) the various residential projects going up on the riverfront in Queens.

[NYguy]

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,23,1247&showImages=table&showParent=true

A look at the site...

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/concept/3940_0013_1_w.jpg


The views of and accross the river will be great...

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/concept/3940_0007_1_w.jpg

[NYguy]

construction news
(older July article)

Details Unveiled for Studio Project

Silvercup Studios in the Long Island City district of Queens, the largest independent television and film production complex in the Northeast, will add an additional 2.2 million sq. ft. of space in a new location on the East River, pending New York City Council approval and a public hearing expected around Labor Day.

The $1 billion Silvercup West development will be located on 6 acres of abandoned land directly south of the Queensborough Bridge. It will consist of a 500-ft.-high commercial tower and two residential towers measuring 526 ft. and 588 ft. in height that together will contain 1,000 units. A base structure would link the residential towers and house eight soundstages, a catering facility for up to 8,000 people, and 100,000 sq. ft. of cultural space.

The owners picked London-based Richard Rogers Partnership - which also designed the new Jacob K. Javits Convention Center expansion on Manhattan's West Side and a master plan for an East River park esplanade - as architect for the development.

At a breakfast event about the project in Manhattan sponsored by the Building Trades Employers' Association and New York Construction, Silvercup CEO Alan Suna said the design incorporates aesthetic choices to blend the towers into the area, including how exoskeleton cross-bracing on the façades echoes the steel beams on the bridge.

The design places the site's "ugly" features, such as docking bays and three levels of parking for 1,400 cars, on the inside of the complex. In addition, the city's Department of Transportation agreed to move existing de-icing facilities that stand south of the site away from the waterfront in order to allow public access to the river.

The design calls for a public promenade, lined with 70,000 sq. ft. of retail on all sides, as well as open space north of the bridge. In a nod to the property's industrial past, the team will restore the 19th-Century Architectural Terra Cotta Co. office building on the site and install a kiln spire statue on the promenade.

Silvercup has already tapped Tishman Construction of New York as construction manager. Preliminary site work is scheduled to begin in early 2008, with completion expected in 2012. Construction of the new facilities at Silvercup West is expected to generate 2,000 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs in the neighborhood.

The new studios will be the company's third location. Originally founded in 1983 on the site of the Silvercup Bakery, the company has two facilities in Queens with 400,000 sq. ft. of studios on 18 soundstages, offering space to TV shows such as HBO's "The Sopranos".

Suna said Silvercup has offered the cultural space in the planned base structure to Queens-based arts institutions such as the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park.

[CMD UW]

Cool! At first I wasn't too impressed with this development. But the more I see it, the more I like it.

Go Queens!

[BayRidgeFever]

2012? Man it's ridiculous how long it takes things to get built in this city.

[STERNyc]

2012? Man it's ridiculous how long it takes things to get built in this city.

Don't forget that the current site is occupied by a temporary power-plant that must still be decommisioned and demolished.

[Chicago Shawn]

Wow, this is a sweet project. What else is planned nearby in Long Island City?

[NYguy]

Wow, this is a sweet project. What else is planned nearby in Long Island City?

Not to get too off topic, but here's a sampling of the developments currently rising on the LIC waterfront...(Posted on curbed.com)


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_LIC3.jpg

This view looking north shows the site of River East, look for the dredging on the shore, where two 30-story buildings are going to be built. Just north is the site of Silvercup West, the huge $1 billion development.


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_LIC1.jpg

Queens West in Long Island City is one happening construction site, with two big cranes now working on two of the new luxury highrises going up. This photo was sent to us by a tipster who lives on an upper floor of the Citylights building and who has a bird's eye view of all the goings on. (And, hopefully, some really good soundproofing.) All together, the project, which Rockrose Development is calling East Coast Long Island City, is going to have 7 buildings with 3,000 units and 120,000 square feet of retail when it's finished, sometime around January 2010.


http://www.curbed.com/2006_12_eastcoastLIC-thumb.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_LIC2.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_5SL%20Site.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_QueensWest.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_06_LIC1.jpg
http://www.eastcoastlic.com/

A cool view of the New Look Long Island City (aka Queens West) has hit the web in the form of the East Coast Long Island City website, which is what Rockrose Development is calling the high rise city going up on the East River in Queens. The site includes an intricate flash animation with Coldplay-sounding music that makes you wonder if Chris Martin will be pictured happily diving off one of those balconies with magnificent East Side views. Rentals in the new 32-story tower at 4720 Center Boulevard start at $1,615 a month for a studio and run up to $5,730 for a penthouse. The site also includes an "interactive timeline" for your inner builder of construction through 2010. Move the slider to see Queens West as each of six more buildings goes up. Hard to navigate, but fun pointing and clicking if you're stuck inside on a nice Friday afternoon.


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_06_2007Occup.jpg

This is the luxe rental building currently under construction that will be ready for residents next year. (They build them fast in Queens West.) This building will include a garage for 900 cars, but, until it opens, it will be dog-eat-dog parking in formerly deserted LIC.


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_06_LIC2008Occup.jpg

This is the new 20-story condo with 279 apartments that will break ground this December. Occupancy is scheduled for 2008. When all's said and done, there will be 3,000 apartments and 120,000 square feet of retail on 22 acres.


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_AvalonRiverviewNorth.jpg

The is the new Avalon building, which is going up at lightening speed.

[NYC2ATX]

an impressive sampling to say the least, thanks NYGuy

[NYguy]

an impressive sampling to say the least, thanks NYGuy

Yer welcome. In a couple of years, the transformation of the east river skyline will be as stunning as what went on in Jersey City, probably to a greater extent. The Williamsburgh waterfront in Brooklyn is undergoing similar developments.

[Jularc]

I am loving those renederings. This is one of those projects I am really excited about. Shame I have to wait too long before anything starts.

[NYguy]

I am loving those renederings. This is one of those projects I am really excited about. Shame I have to wait too long before anything starts.

Yeah, but just think how fast last year went by. Next year we will have so much going on, I'm not sure we could take the excitement...:)

[drew11]

thanks nyguy for the updates. oh and it is interesting that most of the big projects will be finished in 2012. NWTC,first phase of hudson yards,silvercup ect...:tup:

[NYguy]

thanks nyguy for the updates. oh and it is interesting that most of the big projects will be finished in 2012. NWTC,first phase of hudson yards,silvercup ect...:tup:

Would have been the year for the olympics, but they had to go and screw that up...

[WonderlandPark]

Holy crap that is an amazing project. Always been a Rogers fan.

[Chicago Shawn]

Thanks NYguy! That area is changing amazingly fast, looks very different even from my last visit, a year and a half ago.

[NYguy]

Thanks NYguy! That area is changing
amazingly fast, looks very different even from my last visit, a year and a half ago.


A few more years, and you'll get this:

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0037_1_w.jpg

I just wish they would put a 1,000 footer on the Queens side of the riverfront (or close to it).
I'd settle for 800-900 ft, something to rival Trump World's dominance. (If only they
hadn't watered down the Con Ed site development)...

[NYC2ATX]

Yer welcome. In a couple of years, the transformation of the east river skyline will be as stunning as what went on in Jersey City, probably to a greater extent. The Williamsburgh waterfront in Brooklyn is undergoing similar developments.

Yea I kno I'm so thrilled for all the new developments, New York City is always becoming more of a city, and its great to see the outer boroughs joining in. Now if we can get Staten Island and the Bronx to follow suit, wed rele be in business.

[NYguy]

Yeah, it is great to see these developments in the other boroughs. Manhattan can't contain it all. The Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn is a perfect example of what could be done (Long Island City has even larger open rail yards).

[drew11]

how many floors a week do the buildings at queens west rise.

[NYguy]

how many floors a week do the buildings at queens west rise.


Have no idea, but they go up pretty quickly.

[Lecom]

Love this proposal, definitely one of the most interesting ones in the whole city (including Manhattan) and several steps above the skyline fillers at Queens West.

[NYguy]

An older proposal for Queens West (current site of East Coast LIC)...
http://www.meltzermandl.com/projects/ls-project/queenswest.htm


http://www.meltzermandl.com/projects/ls-project/Qwest/qwest4-pop.jpg


http://www.meltzermandl.com/projects/ls-project/Qwest/qwest2-pop.jpg


http://www.meltzermandl.com/projects/ls-project/Qwest/qwest3-pop.jpg


http://www.meltzermandl.com/projects/ls-project/Qwest/qwest1-pop.jpg

[Scruffy]

damnit. Now how sure is this thing? Are they relying on presales or is it good to go

[NYguy]

damnit. Now how sure is this thing? Are they relying on presales or is it good to go

It's a go. They've been quietly getting various approvals from the City, though they now have a requirement to add "affordable" units. It's more the expansion of the studio that's driving this project.

[NYguy]

Daily News

Silvercup looks golden after tax break deal

BY FRANK LOMBARDI
December 20, 2006

City lawmakers agreed yesterday on a plan to revamp a program that gives tax breaks to housing developers, and the biggest winner may be Silvercup Studios, the production home of "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City."

A deal on a bill overhauling the 421a program was struck by Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg with a group of Council dissenters after extensive back room negotiations.

The measure was quickly approved by a 9-to-2 vote in the Council's Housing Committee, and the full Council is set to give its green light today

Silvercup, which has also turned out such films as "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Gangs of New York," has city approval to build Silvercup West, a $1.2 billion development project in Long Island City. That project will include more studio facilities and 1,000 units of market-rate housing.

Under the new bill, Silvercup West will be exempt from having to include 150 units of affordable housing on the same site. Instead it will be allowed to build those units elsewhere in Long Island City.

That provision could end up saving Silvercup up to $100 million in property taxes over the next three decades, according to a participant in the Council negotiations who asked not to be identified.

But Council and city officials strongly defended the studio's loophole, saying it grandfathers in a prior arrangement. They said the Silvercup West site would already be under construction except that state officials requested a delay in the removal of several state power generators from the site to ensure adequate electricity through next summer.

The compromise bill got mixed reviews from housing activists and the Real Estate Board of New York.

"Council members and advocates came together to press for the simple idea that we should not be handing out tax breaks to anybody unless they are building affordable housing," said Julie Miles, director of Housing Here & Now, the coalition of housing groups that campaigned for 421a reform. "This bill is a significant step in that direction."

But Michael Slattery, a senior vice president of the Real Estate Board, said, "It has only made a bad bill worse. It's going to create less, rather than more, affordable housing."

[kenc]

This project will really put Queens on the map. It is as impressive as anything they are building in Manhattan, but affordable.
I read recently New York will have more than 9mil in 10 years, and most of that population growth will not be Manhattan. Queens is the only place with the underdeveloped land to absorb that growth. I wish I had some $$ to invest.

[antinimby]

Well, if you look at the five boroughs from the air, you will see that most of the rest of the boroughs are fairly lowrise and flat.

Therefore, most areas outside Manhattan (and even some areas inside such as the Westside and a lot of Upper Manhattan) can be considered underdeveloped.

The problem is zoning and NIMBYs who will fight any proposals to upzone an area.

[NYguy]

One of the amazing things about New York is the number of people who always want a bite of the Big Apple. As long as they keep finding places to put people, New York will continue to grow. The City just needs to find the right balance to keep it affordable, or risk becoming what some consider it to already be - a place for the very rich, or very poor.

[Dac150]

NYC is a meca for the rich and always will be.

[Scruffy]

not just the rich. im usually broke, but this has always been my heaven. I cant live anywhere else. Well maybe not the Bronx..

[CGII]

NYC is a meca for the rich and always will be.

Correction:Manhattan is a mecca for the rich.

[Jularc]

NYC is a meca for the rich and always will be.

Correction:Manhattan is a mecca for the rich.

Correction: Manhattan is in NYC. So Dac150 is corrent in that sense. ;)

Also there are areas in Brooklyn, Bronx and in Queens where there are Million dollar homes. That only the rich can afford. Just like there are areas in Manhattan where the poor can still find a place to live. (with governemnt help of course, or lots of people packing themselves in tight living conditions.

[NYguy]

NYC is a meca for the rich and always will be.

Depends on your point of view. There is a high poverty rate in the City. It's not just the rich that flock to New York, though it somtimes seems that's who the housing is being built for.

[Scruffy]

i would love to live in manhattan but the rent that i pay now in the bronx would allow me a broom closet with a microwave in manhattan. meanwhile bronxside i got a great spacious apt with a distant view of two bridges. damn manhattan economics

[NYguy]

i would love to live in manhattan but the rent that i pay now in the bronx would allow me a broom closet with a microwave in manhattan. meanwhile bronxside i got a great spacious apt with a distant view of two bridges. damn manhattan economics

LOL. Manhattan will only become tighter, even as new residential developments go up.

[NYguy]

NY Post

THE LONG WAY HOME
L.I.C. IS A-OK WITH DOZENS OF NEW CONDOS AND RENTAL BUILDINGS

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01252007/photos/realestate_lede.jpg


http://www.nypost.com/seven/01252007/photos/re050a.jpg

RISING: EastCoast (left) and Avalon Bay

By ADAM BONISLAWSKI
January 25, 2007

'WHY the hell are you moving there?" That, says Alan Capper, was the question posed to him by a friend last year when he announced his plans to move with his fiancée and daughter from his one-bedroom West Village pad to a new two-bedroom apartment in Long Island City, Queens.

"I had a number of expressions of sympathy from people in Greenwich Village when I told them," recalls Capper, president of the New York-based Foreign Press Association. "It was like they were thinking, 'Oh dear, they must not be doing well at all to be moving over there.'"

Such concern, Capper believes, is misplaced. True, his new home has never exactly been what you'd call a destination neighborhood, but big change is under way in Long Island City.

One stop from Grand Central on the 7 line, the area has long been mentioned in discussions of the next big outer-borough nabes. And while other places like DUMBO and Williamsburg have thrived, L.I.C. has been more a story of unmet potential.

But with roughly 50 new buildings currently either under construction or in the planning stages, Long Island City is now beginning to look like something of a boomtown - one that could become more viable than those Brooklyn 'hoods.

"There's easy access, transportation; the views are spectacular," says Tom Elghanayan, president of Rockrose Development, builders of the new EastCoast complex, which includes a rental building at 4720 Center Blvd. that Capper calls home. "The neighborhood is just in the beginning stages, but you're going to see in two years' time a huge transformation."

Rockrose should figure prominently in the process. The firm plans to build six more luxury towers on a 22-acre waterfront site formerly occupied by a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant. The high-rises will be part of the larger Queens West development - a 74-acre project from the Empire State Development Corporation calling for 15 residential buildings and 2 million square feet of commercial space along the banks of the East River.

Moving inland to the east and north of the Queens West project, there's plenty of activity as well. At the 237-unit Arris Lofts development just across the street from the high-rise Citicorp building, one-bedroom units start at $560,000, two-bedrooms at $870,000 and three-bedrooms at $1,360,000.

Nearby, on Jackson Avenue, the new Echelon building offers 54 one- and two-bedrooms starting at $515,000 and $755,000, respectively.

Add into the mix other new projects like 47th Street's 44-unit Badge building, the Andres Escobar-designed Powerhouse development along the waterfront on Second Street and the 47-unit Gantry building, and you've got a community on the rise in L.I.C.

And with several dozen similar developments in the works, a neighborhood long considered a kind of pretender is turning into the new center of the outer-borough boom, with units going for around $600 per square foot and waterfront units in the $700 range.

"A lot of people feel they're getting an opportunity here," says Prudential Douglas Elliman Executive Vice President Andy Gerringer. "They saw Williamsburg go from $400 to $800 per square foot. They saw DUMBO move from $500 to $900. They're getting an opportunity to get in on the ground floor here and they feel like, 'Hey, this is a shot for me'."

When the Gantry building put out its pre-sales list in late 2005, more than 900 potential buyers signed on to receive information. A year later, the building is sold out. Rockrose's rental development at 4720 Center Blvd. is 90 percent occupied after opening in the fall. Just a single one-bedroom is available for rent ($2,755 per month for 730 square feet with water views). A handful of two-bedrooms start at $3,400.

Even in the neighborhood's grittier northern reaches, in the area surrounding Queens Plaza, new construction has been met with great interest. Last May, in order to snag a spot in the Developers Group's Queens Plaza building, KeySpan employee MaryAnn Behan took a cab in from Nassau County at 3 a.m. to make sure she'd be near the front of the line when sales started.

"I said, OK, if I get there and there's either no one in line or already 50 people in line, I'm turning around and leaving," Behan recalls.

As it turned out, she was the third person to arrive in a crowd that grew to around 30 by noon. Two weeks later, she went into contract on a one-bedroom apartment.

As for the fact that it's still easier to find a strip club than a grocery store in her new nabe, Behan says she's counting on the developments to the south and west of her to bring the necessary services to the area.

"I feel like that wave will spread," she says. "I feel like I'm on the cutting edge right now of something that will happen in the next few years."

Filmmaker Roberto Mitrotti is similarly optimistic. He and his wife moved to the neighborhood from Manhattan two years ago, but having had an office in the area for some six years, he's arguably an L.I.C. veteran.

"When I moved here, an attorney I know who is very involved in real estate called me and said, 'You are in the right place because you are going to see amazing things happen,'" Mitrotti says. "So the big money knew what was going to happen.

"But no one else did. All the people I knew in Manhattan would just say, 'Long Island City? What a dump.'"

Now, however, he says, those same people visit him across the river, look at his city views and go home wishing they had gotten into the neighborhood when he did.

Mitrotti admits L.I.C. still has a way to go. New bars and boutiques and restaurants are popping up along Vernon Avenue and throughout the neighborhood. Still, no one is going to mistake the place for SoHo. But the process has started, and the momentum is there.

"It's happening. It's unavoidable," Mitrotti says. "You have to be a little patient, but you can get something very special in Long Island City."


http://specialsections.nypost.com/news/nypost/nyphome/20070125/img/p43.jpg

[NYC2ATX]

Correction: Manhattan is in NYC. So Dac150 is corrent in that sense. ;)

Also there are areas in Brooklyn, Bronx and in Queens where there are Million dollar homes. That only the rich can afford. Just like there are areas in Manhattan where the poor can still find a place to live. (with governemnt help of course, or lots of people packing themselves in tight living conditions.

HEY! There are very expensive and upscale areas on Staten Island too (i.e. Todt Hill). WHY does everyone always forget STATEN ISLAND? :hell:

[Dac150]

Ok....................physco......take it easy....staten island is number 1..............whatever you say..

[STERNyc]

HEY! There are very expensive and upscale areas on Staten Island too (i.e. Todt Hill). WHY does everyone always forget STATEN ISLAND? :hell:

Because it has no rail connection to Manhattan.

[NYC2ATX]

Ok....................physco......take it easy....staten island is number 1..............whatever you say..

lol sorry, im not psycho.....really, im not......just venting
I'm pretty into the make-people-notice-staten-island thing

ask me about SI anytime guys

Because it has no rail connection to Manhattan.

This is true, were working on it.
There is the ferry tho :rolleyes:

come visit S.I.
there's stuff here!

:previous: lol that should be a new advertising slogan.

[Scruffy]

Staten Island will have its day. Right now all the outer borough development is Long Island City (closet to midtown), downtown brooklyn (closet to downtown Man) and Hub, yankee stadium area of bronx, its across a narrow river from manhattan. there isn't as much far outer borough development going on except for Flushing, Coney Island (though i'll believe that when i see some construction crews at work.) When this get tight everywhere else they will have to go to staten island. though most islanders will fight this. and the only reason its being looked at as a last option is the poor public transport there. A subway train to staten island going through brooklyn would be well over an hour. thats not a selling point.

if it went straight through the harbor by liberty and ellis island that would be quicker but far to expensive to make an 8 mile underwater tunnel. the best bet to connect staten island is to make dedicated express path trains that would connect staten island cross by the bayonne bridge and go up bayonne and connect to jersey city and then cross the hudson to wtc or to hoboken and then cross into midtown. there would need to be alot of inprovements in path for that to work. in short staten island development and integration with the rest of nyc isn't for another 20 years.

and now back to our scheduled silvercup presentation.

Its funny that this get approved with out a problem at 600 feet. while the originally 600 footer miss brooklyn got all holy hell at that height and is now shorter. yes i know it would be higher than the landmark wb savings bank tower, but thats still a stupid argument. i would never have thought to say that Queens is more progessive than Brooklyn. And thats not a jibe at either borough

[NYC2ATX]

Staten Island will have its day. Right now all the outer borough development is Long Island City (closet to midtown), downtown brooklyn (closet to downtown Man) and Hub, yankee stadium area of bronx, its across a narrow river from manhattan. there isn't as much far outer borough development going on except for Flushing, Coney Island (though i'll believe that when i see some construction crews at work.) When this get tight everywhere else they will have to go to staten island. though most islanders will fight this. and the only reason its being looked at as a last option is the poor public transport there. A subway train to staten island going through brooklyn would be well over an hour. thats not a selling point.

if it went straight through the harbor by liberty and ellis island that would be quicker but far to expensive to make an 8 mile underwater tunnel. the best bet to connect staten island is to make dedicated express path trains that would connect staten island cross by the bayonne bridge and go up bayonne and connect to jersey city and then cross the hudson to wtc or to hoboken and then cross into midtown. there would need to be alot of inprovements in path for that to work. in short staten island development and integration with the rest of nyc isn't for another 20 years.


I'm not even asking for complete integration with the rest of the city, what your telling me i already know

all I'm asking is that people not forget that we're here, and that there is stuff here worth coming for. Staten Island also already has a train line in service, so it wouldn't be a matter of building one, just connecting it.

a connection with brooklyn would still be possible and helpful, but that bayonne-hoboken deal sounds pretty roundabout, but who knows?

oh a cool thought: it'd be pretty awesome if there was a subwy line going under the harbor to S.I., because it could even have stops at the statue of liberty and ellis island.
Imagine being able to take the subway to the Statue of Liberty...

[NYC2ATX]

Long Island city is turning into something amazing. The reason i think that people are not adverse to this development like they are toward atlantic yards in brooklyn is that they want to build right in the middle of an older residential neighborhood. Long Island City is a more low-income area with alot of warehouses and industrial, anything happening there would be for the better. plus, there are already some tall buildings there.

This neighborhood reminds me a little of the south waterfront in portland, OR

[pico44]

http://newyorkmetro.com/realestate/features/2016/silvercupwest060529_560.jpg

Wow this project is really beautiful. What a nice companion to one of the world's great bridges.

[-GR2NY-]

I really dont see all those towers rising there, doesn't seem like it will happen.

[NYguy]

I really dont see all those towers rising there, doesn't seem like it will happen.

I don't know what you're talking about. It's already happening.

[Dac150]

It will look cool driving across the Queensboro and having those buildings so close to the side.

[Chicago Shawn]

http://specialsections.nypost.com/news/nypost/nyphome/20070125/img/p43.jpg

Holy crap! None of that was there last time I vistited. LIC is exploding.

[NYguy]

Holy crap! None of that was there last time I vistited. LIC is exploding.

And it's really just starting to take off. Wait until this time next year.

[NYguy]

Not to get too off topic, but here's a sampling of the developments currently rising on the LIC waterfront...(Posted on curbed.com)


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_LIC3.jpg

This view looking north shows the site of River East, look for the dredging on the shore, where two 30-story buildings are going to be built. Just north is the site of Silvercup West, the huge $1 billion development.


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_LIC1.jpg

Queens West in Long Island City is one happening construction site, with two big cranes now working on two of the new luxury highrises going up. This photo was sent to us by a tipster who lives on an upper floor of the Citylights building and who has a bird's eye view of all the goings on. (And, hopefully, some really good soundproofing.) All together, the project, which Rockrose Development is calling East Coast Long Island City, is going to have 7 buildings with 3,000 units and 120,000 square feet of retail when it's finished, sometime around January 2010.


http://www.curbed.com/2006_12_eastcoastLIC-thumb.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_LIC2.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_5SL%20Site.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_QueensWest.jpg


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_06_LIC1.jpg
http://www.eastcoastlic.com/

A cool view of the New Look Long Island City (aka Queens West) has hit the web in the form of the East Coast Long Island City website, which is what Rockrose Development is calling the high rise city going up on the East River in Queens. The site includes an intricate flash animation with Coldplay-sounding music that makes you wonder if Chris Martin will be pictured happily diving off one of those balconies with magnificent East Side views. Rentals in the new 32-story tower at 4720 Center Boulevard start at $1,615 a month for a studio and run up to $5,730 for a penthouse. The site also includes an "interactive timeline" for your inner builder of construction through 2010. Move the slider to see Queens West as each of six more buildings goes up. Hard to navigate, but fun pointing and clicking if you're stuck inside on a nice Friday afternoon.


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_06_2007Occup.jpg

This is the luxe rental building currently under construction that will be ready for residents next year. (They build them fast in Queens West.) This building will include a garage for 900 cars, but, until it opens, it will be dog-eat-dog parking in formerly deserted LIC.


http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006_06_LIC2008Occup.jpg

This is the new 20-story condo with 279 apartments that will break ground this December. Occupancy is scheduled for 2008. When all's said and done, there will be 3,000 apartments and 120,000 square feet of retail on 22 acres.


http://www.curbed.com/2006_09_AvalonRiverviewNorth.jpg

The is the new Avalon building, which is going up at lightening speed.

Another update on the LIC boom from curbed.com:

Long Island City From On High: Avalon Topped Off

http://www.curbed.com/2007_01_Avalon%20North%20Top%20Off%201.jpg

We're going to lay on the Long Island City love extra thick today because a special Curbed correspondent with a killer view sent us the above shot of the Avalon Riverview North building being topped off. Seems like only yesterday it was a hole in the ground, although our correspondent writes that no such progress has been made on a promised library:

No visible progress has been made on the Parcel 8 Library swap that cost at least the top 6 floors of Citylights their view.

Thus, it would seem that some residents may be gazing on their new neighbor with something less than joy.

[JoshYent]

amazing!

[NYC2ATX]

on what lot is the avalon being built (in terms of bordering streets)?

[NYguy]

on what lot is the avalon being built (in terms of bordering streets)?


http://www.queenswest.com/img/map_riverview_mapquest_499w_500h.gif


Early pics (queenswest.com)

http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20060907_riverview_north_4.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20060107_riverview_north_1.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20060909_riverview_north_6.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20061021_riverview_north_7.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20061103_riverview_north_1.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20061118_riverview_north_10.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20061124_riverview_north_12.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20061216_riverview_north_17.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20070109_riverview_north_2.jpg?display=small


http://www.queenswest.com/riverview/pictures/riverview_north/20070121_larry_d_riverview.jpg?display=small

[MolsonExport]

that is some amazing shit.

[NYguy]

that is some amazing shit.

Yeah, they're building a whole new city there. It took a while to get underway (like a lot of things in New York), but once started, its been moving pretty quickly.

[NYC2ATX]

thanks NYguy

[NYguy]

NY Times

A Bachelor Pad With a View: A Giant Bottle Cap

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/10/nyregion/10jour600.1.jpg

From across the East River, the Pepsi sign beckons “like a lighthouse.”

By ELLEN BARRY
February 10, 2007

When Yo Han Cho wakes up in the morning, one of the first things he sees out his window is the top of the Pepsi-Cola bottle, 50 feet tall and tipping south. When he returns to his apartment 18 or 19 hours later to go to sleep, there is the bottle cap, silhouetted against the lights of Manhattan.

Like many of his neighbors in this new glass high-rise in Long Island City, Queens, Mr. Cho is a newcomer to New York. When he first moved into his “humble room,” as he calls it, he did not quite understand.

“I was like, what is this sign doing in front of my apartment?” said Mr. Cho, 25, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, and educated at a boarding school in Scotland. One of his roommates, an accountant originally from Mumbai, was downright irritated.

“I would rather not have that, by choice,” said the roommate, Arif Chiba, who is also 25. Mr. Chiba’s room is on the northwest corner of the building. He has the most spectacular view: At night, the East River is an expanse of silver, and the lights of the Queensboro Bridge fall in loops, like a necklace.

The Pepsi-Cola Company bottled soda on the site beginning in 1936. Over the course of the 20th century, residents of the East Side of Manhattan became accustomed to the sign’s livid glow across the river; Long Island City residents came to count it among their local wonders. When Rockrose Development Corporation bought the property from PepsiCo in 2003, planners began receiving passionate letters in defense of the sign. PepsiCo made its preservation a contract of the sale. “It’s like a lighthouse,” said Kathleen Scott, Rockrose’s director of leasing and sales.

Rockrose paid to move the sign, painstakingly lowering each letter with a crane, laying it on the back of a flatbed truck and hauling it 300 feet to a spot on the waterfront. It will remain there for 18 months, then be moved by the same process to its permanent location. The residential development on the grounds, EastCoast, will eventually house 10,000 to 12,000 people.

In August, tenants began taking their places in the tower behind the sign. For the four young men in Apartment 505, among the city’s newer transplants, that meant coming face to face — or face to back — with a vestige of industrial New York.

They are bachelors. In their living room, one wall is bare except for a dartboard, and another is decorated with a small illuminated sign that reads, “open BAR.” On an end table is a 48-ounce container of Utz party mix and a letter from the building manager complaining about noise. Mr. Cho cheerfully indicates an ornate bar in the corner, which is stocked with staples like apple-flavored schnapps.

“This is what I show people when they visit for the first time,” he said.

Mr. Cho, who has a round face and a whisper of a mustache, had a grander lifestyle in mind when he decided to move to New York — “extravagant, chic New York,” as he put it. He had a vague idea that people would order Champagne by the magnum.

Instead he gets up at 6:30 a.m. to go to work at a clothing importer, routing containers arriving by sea from Asia and Central America. Then he heads into Manhattan to attend classes at New York University. When they get out, at 9:30 p.m., he has an hour or so to see friends before going to bed at 1 a.m.

In October, he noted this reality in his blog, YoHan’s Joyful Avenue. “I seem to sleep very little as I am very much engaged with numerous things during the day it might be that I am already influenced by New York City’s tendency which it never sleeps.”

With time, his blunt first impressions of New York have faded. He is less troubled by surly cabbies. The clatter of the street seems muted now, and he can block out the churn and grumble of bodies on the subway. “I suppose one either loves it or hates it,” he said of the city. “I think I am the one who loves it.”

The same thing has happened with the Pepsi-Cola sign outside his window, which no longer bothers him in the least. “After a while,” he said, “you almost stop seeing it.”

[NYguy]

Daily News

Views, check - but parking? Not yet
EastCoast complex is selling almost too fast

BY DONALD BERTRAND

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/753-Q_LICBuilding.JPG

RockRose's first completed EastCoast highrise in Queens West.


Six months after putting the "For Rent" sign out at the first Rockrose Development tower at Queens West, the 495 units in the 32-story glass tower are almost sold out.

Lack of available parking is what is slowing sales of those units, said Jon McMillan, Rockrose's director of planning.

"What we have left are three-bedroom penthouses that rent for $5,000 to $6,000 and a few other mostly larger units. The people who want to rent them want parking, so we lose that business," said McMillan.

Called EastCoast, the Rockrose share of the Queens West site will have seven buildings with 3,400 units and two parking garages with 1,800 spaces when completed.

"Parking is tough. You have to circle, but it is easier than it is in Manhattan," said Kenneth Eichler, 47, who with his partner and his teenage daughter have a ninth-floo,r two-bedroom-plus/two-bath apartment.

"I lived in Manhattan all my adult life from college on and just moved out here after Thanksgiving. I am a convert. I love it," said Eichler, a government consultant.

"When we moved, one of the concerns was safety for a teenage female," Eichler added. "We asked neighbors and police officers and all said it was safe. I was a little skeptical, but it is so incredibly safe and so people-friendly. It is a wonderful, vibrant neighborhood that is really happening now."

Before moving, Eichler lived at 55th St. and Sutton Place. "I find [EastCoast] is closer to the trains than there and that it takes less time to get to most parts of Manhattan."

The view from Eichler's apartment is hard to beat. Facing the East River, the view takes in a panorama from the Queensboro Bridge to the tip of Manhattan.

McMillan said, "You have to educate your audience about Long Island City and get them over there, but once they are there and see what the views are from the buildings, people are easily sold on the location," said McMillan.

Still, he said, the tenants are a "pioneering bunch."

"You are missing some essential neighborhood services. There is no grocery store.

That will change when the second EastCoast building opens later this year. A yet to be named supermarket and a Duane Reade drug store are scheduled to occupy part of the first floor. It will also have a six story garage.

That will be followed by a 20-story condo with 184 units. To be determined is the makeup of four other buildings on the Rockrose site.

According to McMillan, 50% of the EastCoast renters come from Manhattan, another 30% from outside the tristate area and the remaining 20% are from other parts of the metro area. The average age of a renter is 30.

Rockrose, said Charles Singer, the firm's director of market research, has a tradition of recognizing emerging neighborhoods.

"We did it in Battery Park City, the West Village, the financial district and now Long Island City," he said.

Besides Rockwell, other buildings at Queens West include Citylights, the first building to rise at the site; Avalon Riverview, and an eight-story senior housing complex. A second Avalon Bay is also nearing completion.

In the surrounding area, at least 38 other condominium developments are moving toward completion, said McMillan.

[NYguy]

Can't get enough of this...

curbed.com

LIC #2: The View from the Ground

http://www.curbed.com/2007_02_LIC%20from%20Park.jpg

We've run some shots of the new towers in Long Island City as seen from above, but we figured it's worth sharing the view from the ground too. Seems only yesterday they were holes in the ground. Reports say the Rockrose building that opened last year is almost fully rented, but residents are complaining about parking. We assume the free month of rent hasn't hurt. (Not to worry, though. There's a six-story behemoth coming.) Also coming are a supermarket (no word on the chain) and a Duane Reade. Rockrose says 50 percent of the EastCoast renters have come from Manhattan. Total Rockrose share of the LIC pie when finished--7 buildings with 3,400 units. Avalon Riverview North (the building on the right) did win the topping off race recently, though.

[NYguy]

amny

New life pouring into the waterfront

http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28688032.jpg

A development just south of the UN, looking east across the East River.


By Michael Clancy and James Fanelli
March 30, 2007

Short, blue-collar and industrial, the East River has always been outshined by the majestic Hudson River. It's not even technically a river, but a brackish strait connecting the Long Island Sound and upper New York harbor.

But second billing for the East River may soon change. Its banks -- on both the Manhattan and outer borough sides -- are undergoing a profound transformation from underutilized industrial shoreline to the city's new Gold Coast.

"There is more land available and being developed now than perhaps any time in the city's history," said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society.

"More than urban renewal. More than Robert Moses. It's just an unbelievable amount of change."

More than 1,000 acres of East River shoreline are being redeveloped or slated for change as housing, parks and office space, creating millions of square feet of commercial, retail and office space along the river.

The sweeping changes represent an enormous opportunity to reclaim the waterfront -- a hallmark of the Bloomberg administration -- but advocates warn there is only one chance to get it right, to create an accessible waterfront that the whole city can enjoy, not just residents of luxury developments.

East River Waterfront Plan

A beach on the East River? That's just one of the new amenities planned for two miles of the neglected East River waterfront, from the Battery Maritime Building on the southern tip of Manhattan to the Lower East Side, which is slated to be revitalized with $150 million of federal 9/11 aid.

Parking lots, dilapidated piers and Department of Sanitation depots will give way to esplanades, walkways and even a sandy beach on the East River as the city reconnects the South Street Seaport, the financial district and Chinatown with the East River.

The city is working to get access to some of the properties, designing other portions, and moving other parts through the public review process, said Rachaele Raynoff, spokeswoman for the Department of City Planning.

Raynoff said to expect an announcement in the coming weeks that one of planned recreation spots will be open this summer.

Even the FDR drive, which hugs the East River, will get new lighting and sound-dampening material attached to its underside so that it looks and sounds a little better as New Yorkers pass under it to get to the river.

Pier 17

While the new leaseholders of South Street Seaport's Pier 17 haven't unveiled any final plans for the riverside site, it is nearly definite that some type of larger structure -- perhaps a high-rise -- will be proposed for the pier, which sits in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Meeting with Community Board 1 for the first time earlier this month, General Growth Properties outlined a rough vision for the pier and the former Fulton Fish Market buildings, which would include razing the mall, relocating the landmark Tin Building, shoring up the pier, and building a new mixed-use structure -- possibly a tower that rises 50 stories tall.

East River Science Park

A California-based firm that specializes in laboratory spaces, Alexandria Real Estate Equities plans to break ground next spring on the $400 million East River Science Park, a 1.1 million-square-foot complex that will house laboratories and office space for life sciences businesses and researchers.

The lot currently houses a Bellevue Hospital Center building and a parking lot. The science park will be built on 3.5 acres of city-owned land between 28th and 29th streets and First Avenue and the FDR Drive.

It is envisioned as an incubator for pharmaceutical and biotech businesses, which would find natural partners with NYU Medical Center, Columbia University, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center among others.

The first tenants are expected to occupy the facility by 2009. The city is expected to kick in about $14 million for infrastructure improvement, and the developers, who have a 49-year lease with two 25-year options, are expected to get tax breaks and other incentives worth more than $250 million.

Con Edison plant area

Along three empty parcels of East River waterfront, stretching from 35th to 41st streets, eight skyscrapers, some as tall as 69 stories, are planned as part of Manhattan's second-largest development after the World Trade Center site.

Developer Sheldon Solow seeks to build 3.54 million square feet of residential space, 1.3 million square feet of commercial space, 28,000 square feet of retail space and 120,000 square feet of 'community space' on the tracts, one of which used to be the site of a Con Ed power plant.

Renowned architects Richard Meier and David Childs are working on designs for some of the skyscrapers. A total of 3,000 new units is envisioned. The developer is preparing his final proposal to begin the zoning approval process.

After hearing Solow's initial plans, Community Board 6 asked that the development be scaled back and include more open space, commercial space, affordable housing and a school.

"It's a question of scale and what is overdevelopment," said Community Board 6 land-use chair Ed Rubin.

United Nations Renovation

Long delayed by bureaucratic red tape, political wrangling and the search for temporary office space, a new building should begin to rise this year as a $1.9 billion renovation gets underway on the iconic United Nations landmark Secretariat and General Assembly buildings.

After unsuccessfully searching for temporary 'swing space' in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, the U.N. chose to build that swing space on the northern part of its own campus.

The specific dimensions of the new building are still being hashed out, said U.N. spokeswoman Soung-ah Choi.The renovation, to be done in phases and completed in 2014, presents an opportunity to allow better public access to the waterfront -- a move lauded by open-space advocates but which poses security challenges.

BROOKLYN

In Elias Kazan's 1954 film classic, "On the Waterfront," Marlon Brando plays a guilt-stricken dock worker in a corrupt union who does nothing to prevent a mob rubout.

During the course of his torment, Brando's Terry Malloy delivers an elegiac speech about his washed-up boxing career, indelibly whispering, "I could have been a contender."

Malloy never got that chance at the title, but the inspiration for the film's backdrop, the gritty Brooklyn waterfront once filled with bustling wharves and smoking factories, has a shot at the big time.

Multiple projects are breathing life into miles of fallow land along the East River's edge, ultimately transforming the rundown piers and vacant factories into a tantalizing waterfront destination for thousands of residents and park-goers.

Fueled by sweeping city and state incentives and unprecedented public-private partnerships in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and land near the Brooklyn Bridge, the projects will bring as much as 12,210 units of new housing and 121.1 acres of parkland and esplanades to the borough's waterfront and surrounding area.

Though no time frame has been hammered out, the city also envisions an interconnected series of parks, esplanades and bike paths on the waterfront that will stretch between Newtown Creek in Long Island City and Owl's Head Park in Bay Ridge.

"We do have a vision for a continuous connection of parks and greenways," said Joshua Laird, assistant commissioner of planning at the city Parks Department.

The Herculean overhaul is not without its opponents. Critics have scrutinized some of the city's deals as too favorable to developers. Others like the Manhattan-based Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit that has consulted on waterfronts around the world, warn that the emphasis on residential developments will ultimately keep people away from the parks.

"It's the suburbanization of Brooklyn," said PPS vice president Ethan Kent. "Residential buildings, especially high rises, are not really compatible with a waterfront. It may look nice and preserve a lot of parkland, but because of the residential adjacencies, they are preventing the parks from being used by the public."

But in an age where tight budgets and few dollars are readily available for public projects, city and state agencies argue that private housing is the most cost efficient and least intrusive way to spur the river's revitalization.

Here's a look at few of the projects:

Williamsburg-Greenpoint:

In May 2005, the city green lighted a wholesale makeover of two miles, or about 175 blocks, of Williamsburg and Greepoint. Its inlands already rife with development projects, the neighborhoods' waterfronts were now open game to the real estate boom.

The rezoning of land to mixed-use will bring luxury condos where weeded vacant lots, old warehouses and factories now stand. Further rezoning also allows for residential developments in the neighborhoods' upland area. In total, 11,000 new housing units will be created, according to the city's Housing Preservation and Development.

There is a tradeoff to allowing 30-story-plus high rises on the waterfront.

Of the 11,000 units, 33 percent will be affordable. On the waterfront, 1,563 of the housing units will be for middle and low-income residents.

Twenty-three months after the rezoning, the waterfront vision is taking shape, with 459 affordable units that have begun or are about to begin construction, according to HPD. L & M Equities has already started work on the first phase of its development, Palmer's Dock, which will bring 294 units, with more than a third of them affordable.

The other community benefit of the rezoning is the creation of 44.1 acres of esplanades and parkland. Among the amenities will be boat launches and stone edges that slope into the water, allowing closer access to the East River.

Though each waterfront developer will build their own section, the Parks Department said it's working with the developers to a make a seamless, interconnected esplanade.

"We want to ensure that it not just be a daisy chain of unrelated esplanades," said assistant Parks Commissioner Laird.

Further incentives make it favorable for developers to deed over the esplanade in exchange for the city taking on liability. The city will also collect fees from developers that will pay for the parkland's upkeep.

While the city has insisted it has been updating the community on its progress, some Community Board 1 members and neighborhood groups say they've been left out of the loop about the rezoning and land being gobbled up by developers.

"There should be greater input in our end," said Christopher Olechowski, the Community Board 1 liaison to the mayor's advisory board on the Brooklyn and Williamsburg rezoning.

Other critics have voiced concern about the indefinite timeline for the creation of esplanades and parks since

"The esplanade won't be developed until the developments are completed," said Marisa Bowe, economic coordinator at Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, a North Brooklyn advocacy group. "That could be 20 years before it's completed."

Brookyn Bridge Park:

After more than 20 years of debating what to do with 1.3 miles of unused piers and empty land between Jay Street and Atlantic Avenue, the city and state agreed in 2002 to give $150 million to help create a scenic park that cuts under Brooklyn Heights' bluff, through the Brooklyn Bridge and ends at the Manhattan Bridge.

But the final product, which includes a marina and a bike path, hasn't settled well with some of the residents in the borough's toniest section or its surrounding neighborhoods.

While the Brooklyn Bridge Park will have 77 acres of parkland, eight acres will be set aside to develop as much as 1,210 luxury condo units, a hotel and other retail space.

Brooklyn residents had expected a portion of the park's upkeep to be paid for with private development, but some had expected it to be in keeping with a 2000 planning document that limited commercial space to restaurants and retail stores.

"This is the first time in the history of the state that private housing has been allowed inside the park borders," said Judy Francis, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund, which is currently appealing a judicial ruling that upheld the project.

She said the earlier park plan provided for a skating rink, a pool and other amenities that have been scrubbed. She added that the 2000 plan would have had an annual operating cost of just over $9 million. Those costs would have been covered by a mixture of philanthropy and small commercial space, she said.

But the Brooklyn Bridge Development Corp., the state agency in charge of executing the plan, said costs would run higher. The state has pledged $85 million and the city $65 million to build the park, but annual maintenance and operation costs will be $15.19 million.

"The uses included in that 2000 Plan could not have covered the annual maintenance and operations of the Park," said agency spokesman Errol Cockfield. He added that out of all the self-sustaining park plans that BBDC examined, a mix of housing and a a small hotel was the most cost-effective.

"Housing occupies the smallest amount of land while generating the highest return," he said.

Domino Sugar Factory:

The Greenpoint-Williamsburg may have been a sweet deal for housing along the waterfront, but it does have its sticking points, including the preservation of a historic building in the neighborhood.

Built in 1884 and shuttered in 2004, the Domino Sugar factory remains an icon in Williamsburg for its illuminated curlicue sign. But because of its historical significance, the building has spawned a housing battle as its current owner, CPC Resources, determines how to turn the former factory into a residential development.

While some advocates want CPC Resources to build the maximum amount of affordable housing, others want the developer to preserve the factory as much as possible.

"We're trying to develop something that's responsible in terms of affordable housing and in terms of preservation," said Richard Edmonds, a spokesman for the CPC Resources, a subsidiary of Community Preservation Corp., an affordable housing developer.

Edmonds said the developer will unveil its plans in the coming weeks.

However, he did say that more than 20% of the development's units will be affordable housing.

[NYguy]

More images from the AMNY article...

http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687517.jpg

Panorama of East River, looking toward Queens.


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687574.jpg

Looking east across the East River.


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687541.jpg


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687543.jpg

Looking west at the East River


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687580.jpg

Looking across the East River to the Kent Ave development in Williamsburg.


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687892.jpg


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687637.jpg

Kent Ave development in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687919.jpg


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687947.jpg


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687951.jpg

Looking east at the Kent Ave development in Williamsburg, Brooklyn from East River Park


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687496.jpg


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687497.jpg

South Street Seaport area along the East River.

[Thskyscraper]

:previous: Those pics are great. I'm happy to see development in BK and Queens, should only add more to the NYC area.

[NYguy]

:previous: Those pics are great. I'm happy to see development in BK and Queens, should only add more to the NYC area.

Just the tip of the iceberg. When the Silvercup towers and others get underway, people will be both surprised and amazed at how quickly that skyline grew up...

http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28688032.jpg


http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-03/28687574.jpg

[J. Will]

It looks like a neat project, but it also looks like a long walk from the nearest subway station. The nearest subway is under the Citigroup skyscraper isn't it?

The area immediately around it also looks almost like a no-man's-land, which makes 70k square feet of retail surprising.

[JBoston]

All of this waterfront construction is insane. I really like this proposal, the design is pretty awesome.

[NYguy]

It looks like a neat project, but it also looks like a long walk from the nearest subway station. The nearest subway is under the Citigroup skyscraper isn't it?

The area immediately around it also looks almost like a no-man's-land, which makes 70k square feet of retail surprising.

There's a subway stop closer to the river. The fact that it was a no-man's-land is what makes all the construction possible. Similar to what's about to take place on Manhattan's west side.

[NYguy]

APRIL 22, 2007


The soon-to-be-expanding Silvercup Studios...

http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/77641672/large.jpg


Residential highrise construction boom on the LIC riverfront

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[NYguy]

http://www.therealdeal.net/issues/JULY_2007/1183150240.php

Plot thickens in Hollywood East
Silvercup, Steiner and Kaufman studios plan to double NY shooting spaces

http://www.therealdeal.net//issues/JULY_2007/images/1183150240.jpg

A rendering of Silvercup West, a 2.7-million-square-foot project that will break ground in 2008.


By Sushil Cheema


Soaring high above the Queensboro Bridge, the giant Silvercup Studios logo -- New York's answer to California's famous Hollywood sign -- stands like a sentinel over the beige brick building where many iconic modern films were made.

Amid half-empty warehouses, industrial businesses and taxi parking garages, this slice of Long Island City is where the Devil put on Prada, Harry met Sally and the Godfather met his end. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda mulled over their sex lives, and Tony Soprano took care of business.

But the growth of the entertainment industry in the city is facing some tough realities, with space fetching a bigger premium than stardom.

Demand is reaching record levels for shooting in the city, and Silvercup and New York's two other major studios -- Steiner Studios and Kaufman Astoria Studios -- are planning to add about 979,000 more square feet of studio space to the city's current 1.21 million square feet, bringing the total to 2.19 million square feet.

Silvercup is planning a $1 billion expansion that will add 650,000 square feet to its current facilities. Steiner Studios, the city's newest studio, will expand from its current 310,000 square feet with the addition of 289,000 square feet. Kaufman Astoria Studios, the home of "Sesame Street," has 500,000 square feet of space and plans to add an 18,000-square-foot stage and about 22,000 square feet of support and office space.

Silvercup began creating new TV and film characters after the networks announced their television lineups, and the busy shooting season started recently, says Alan Suna, Silvercup's founder and chief executive officer. That means cash will keep coming in, but an awful lot of it will have to go out to meet the studio's expansion needs.

Building and maintaining studio space is expensive because of the equipment involved, says Doug Steiner, the chairman of Steiner Studios. "It's like a four-star hotel for very, very demanding clientele." New facilities in New York, he added, are "way more expensive to build than in L.A."

Up until a few years ago, films about New York were shot in other cities and countries, according to Katherine Oliver, commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting. The long-running television show "Seinfeld" took place in New York, but apart from a few exterior shots in the opening credits, it was shot in Los Angeles.

City tax incentives put in place in 2004 have played an integral role in luring production business back to New York, which now has a $5 billion film industry that employs about 100,000 people. The new law created a 5 percent refundable tax credit for production companies to claim for those who work behind the scenes, such as production and camera crews, makeup artists and legions of assistants, says Steiner, who lobbied hard for the bill's passage. The new bill added to a 10 percent state tax credit passed in 2003.

The number of film, television show, commercial and music video shoots in New York City reached a record high of nearly 35,000 shoot days in 2006, according to figures from Oliver's office.

"It's more financially reasonable for producers" to shoot in New York, says Suna, who also advocated for the legislation. Previously, the cost of production in the city drove producers to choose other cities, like L.A., Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C. Canada was also a popular choice because of the weak Canadian dollar. As its value has strengthened, the benefits of choosing that location have diminished, Suna says.

Actual numbers regarding studio space rent rates and construction rates are hard to come by, but Steiner makes a few comparisons to put it in perspective. The spaces, he says, rent for "a lot less than you'd think, and a lot less than in L.A." He did say that production office space in New York City overall is in "the low teens per square foot gross." The industry, he added, "is a very tightfisted business."

Studios can accommodate multiple projects at once. Television shows typically rent per week, and commercials and music videos rent by day, Suna says. Parking space, office space and studios can be rented out individually based on necessity. And the studios deal directly with the production coordinators and producers on the projects. "It is not a brokerage-driven business," Steiner says, and independent brokers are not typically involved in the rental negotiations.

Silvercup Bakery was the original occupant of what is now Silvercup Studios, which was converted to its present form in 1983. Over the past two decades, it has established itself among the leading production facilities in the U.S. Spread over two lots, Silvercup has 18 separate studio spaces, ranging in size from 3,000 to 18,000 square feet.

Expansion plans will create Silvercup West, a 2.7-million-square-foot new construction, multipurpose space that will include studios, residences, offices and parking. The project will break ground in 2008.

Queens also has the 1920-vintage Kaufman Astoria Studios, which was founded by early East Coast film mogul Adolph Zukor and eventually taken over by Paramount Studios. A postwar period of disuse ended when a nonprofit organization reopened it for the 1977 production of "The Wiz." In 1980, real estate developer George Kaufman expanded and rebuilt the studio in Astoria. Today it has six stages, as well as office, studio and support space. Current plans for expansion include a building that will house a new stage and 22,000 square feet of support and office space.

Built from the bottom up in 2004, Steiner says that Steiner Studios "were the first purpose-built stages [in New York] in about 50 years." Located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard near Williamsburg, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, Steiner Studios has plans to grow by adding a 250,000-square foot adjacent building, says Steiner. Steiner currently has about 100,000 square feet of sound stages and 185,000 square feet of office space, make-up rooms, mill shops and other space.

"We have plans to become a full-blown Hollywood-style lot, to become the media district for New York City," says Steiner. The studio's best-known productions to date fittingly include the movie version of "The Producers."

Accessible and abundant resources are another reason shooting in New York makes sense.

"New York is one of the greatest cities in the world," Suna says. "It has a pool of acting talent, directorial talent and writing talent that make homes here and are less gypsy-like."

And do the studio heads think the boom will last?

"We do," Suna says, "or else we wouldn't be planning on doubling our size."

[CoolCzech]

I ran across the Land Use Application for Silvercup West at:

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dcp/pdf/lu_apps/ulurp_q02.pdf

It's dated "As of 01/08/08." Can we take that to mean this project is still alive and well?

[NYguy]

Can we take that to mean this project is still alive and well?

I never thought that it wasn't. It's not supposed to begin until early 2009. This development is largely a studio expansion. Lately, all of the major studios in the city have been expanding. That could only be good news for New York.

[CoolCzech]

2009? All the sites that discuss the project that Google brought up said it was to start in early 2008. I guess there was a delay...

[NYguy]

2009? All the sites that discuss the project that Google brought up said it was to start in early 2008. I guess there was a delay...

Probably a mistake. Either in the original thread, or earlier in this one, it was given as 2009.

[NYguy]

Time to take another look at this waterfront development..

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,23,1247,1249.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/env_review/silvercup_west/ch01_feis.pdf


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0037_design_w.jpg


http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0037_1_w.jpg[/url]

Just another look at the awesome potential of the east river skylines...

[NYguy]

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/080211nyc.asp

Richard Rogers Treading Water on NYC Riverfronts

February 11, 2008
By Alec Appelbaum

Frank Gehry has one, so do Jean Nouvel and Norman Foster. Renzo Piano has two. But last month, when New York’s governor scrapped a convention center expansion project, Richard Rogers—who joined Piano in electrifying Paris with the Pompidou Center during the early 1970s—remained a Pritzker Prize winner who has worked in New York City without a finished project to show for it.

The project was an expansion of I.M. Pei’s 1986 Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, nearly doubling its 790,000 square feet of exhibition space and creating a waterfront promenade along the Hudson River. Since Rogers’ scheme was unveiled in 2006, though, estimated construction costs ballooned twofold to $3.2 billion—prompting Governor Eliot Spitzer to cancel the project on January 31 in favor of a more modest 100,000-square-foot addition that will stay within the original budget.

The Javits expansion was one of three long-gestating developments that would have brought Rogers’ grand waterfront promenades to the Big Apple’s skuzzy edges. In 2005, he co-led a study for a city-sponsored project to liven downtown Manhattan’s South Street waterfront under an elevated highway on the East River. And in 2006, the city approved his design for residences, retail, and film production facilities at Silvercup Studios on the river’s opposite bank, in Queens.

All three waterfront projects could still happen—some day, in some form. At Javits, Rogers and FXFowle will remain at work on the smaller expansion under an amended contract, says Empire State Development Corporation spokesperson Warner Johnston. At South Street, meanwhile, Rogers decided against bidding to work on the actual design of the $150 million project, which local partner SHoP Architects and Ken Smith Landscape Architects are executing this year. “I don’t think it was a very large project for them,” SHoP partner Gregg Pasquarelli observes.

Despite delays, Silvercup Studios is still championing Rogers’ plan for a new district called Silvercup West. It includes restores the landmark 1892 New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company building and converting it into a soundstage, then surrounding the structure with three towers containing 1,000 apartments, offices, and a retail-rich esplanade. Proponents of the 2-million-square-foot, $1 billion project had initially hoped that construction would begin this year. But Silvercup CEO Alan Suna says that it’s taken a year longer than expected to secure permission to enter the site and test the soil at an old power plant that Silvercup intends to demolish.

Should Rogers feel accursed? Not necessarily. Pasquarelli says that fits and starts come with the territory for anyone who works at such a large scale. “That’s the nature of design at the highest level. A lot of projects don’t move forward. You only notice because Rogers is at such a high caliber and everyone was excited about what he was going to do.”

If anything, demand for work by Rogers and other high-profile international architects remains strong, adds Foster + Partners’ Michael Wurzel. “People really appreciate the fact that architects from around the world are working in the city,” he says. “I think there’s a sense of a new skyline.”

To that end, Rogers may get his own gleaming tower before any of his waterfront esplanades open: he is one of three architects, along with Foster and Fumihiko Mahi, who have designed towers for the World Trade Center site. Developer Larry Silverstein has promised that excavation work on the towers will begin within weeks, keeping pace for a 2012 opening.

[NYguy]

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/02/developers_dreams_deferred_in.html

Developer’s Dreams Deferred in Long Island City
Twilight for Silvercup West?

http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/intel/08/02/08_silvercup_lg.jpg


Long Island City won't be transitioning from Next Big Thing to Big Thing quite as quickly as some were planning. In August 2006, Alan and Stuart Suna, the brothers who run Silvercup Studios near the Queensboro Bridge, unveiled city-approved plans for Silvercup West: a new soundstage and offices and 1,000 apartments (150 priced for people of moderate means), plus retail, a gym, and an esplanade on the waterfront, all designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Richard Rogers and set to begin construction in 2008. But it's taken a year, Silvercup CEO Alan Suna says, to get permission to enter the site and test the soil around a power plant the team will have to clear.

And now that the builders have gotten into the dirt, they've discovered that the bedrock was not where they expected it to be. Is there something toxic in there? Nobody will say. So when will we get this handsome new neighborhood? “We really can't give a target date at this point,” says Silvercup spokesperson Cara Marino Gentile. Adds Rogers spokesperson Paul Stelmaszczyk, “We are not currently working on any adjustments to the design.” That’s the sound of a project stalling out. LIC loft-dwellers have a little more time, it seems, to relish that pioneer spirit. —Alec Appelbaum

[CoolCzech]

Th-th-th-tha-tha-THAT'S ALL FOLKS!!! :(

[nygirl1]

Ny is turning into the city of a lotta hype.

[Dac150]

When it's not NIMBYS, it the bedrock not being there. I'll tell you, I was looking foward to this one because it would've look amazing driving across the 59th Bridge and having these buildings so close. What a damn upset.

[NYguy]

When it's not NIMBYS, it the bedrock not being there. I'll tell you, I was looking foward to this one because it would've look amazing driving across the 59th Bridge and having these buildings so close. What a damn upset.

Why upset?

And now that the builders have gotten into the dirt, they've discovered that the bedrock was not where they expected it to be. Is there something toxic in there? Nobody will say. So when will we get this handsome new neighborhood? “We really can't give a target date at this point,” says Silvercup spokesperson Cara Marino Gentile. Adds Rogers spokesperson Paul Stelmaszczyk, “We are not currently working on any adjustments to the design.”

Nobody said it was canceled.

[Dac150]

There are a number of upsets, one being that the date will be pushed back, and the design will now have to be altered.

[NYguy]

There are a number of upsets, one being that the date will be pushed back, and the design will now have to be altered.

The date most certainly has been pushed back. An altered design, I'm not so sure about. There has to be some clarification before we know how much or what will be altered. The bedrock wasn't where they expected it to be, the WTC has had the same problem.

Adds Rogers spokesperson Paul Stelmaszczyk, “We are not currently working on any adjustments to the design.”

That could be interpreted many ways, good and bad. But I'm not one to press the panic button.

[CoolCzech]

Well, I sure hope you're right, NYguy: it would be a damned shame to lose this one because of contaminated soil, or whatever the problem is.

Excerpt from archrecord.construction.com:

February 11, 2008

Despite delays, Silvercup Studios is still championing Rogers’ plan for a new district called Silvercup West. It includes restores the landmark 1892 New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company building and converting it into a soundstage, then surrounding the structure with three towers containing 1,000 apartments, offices, and a retail-rich esplanade. Proponents of the 2-million-square-foot, $1 billion project had initially hoped that construction would begin this year. But Silvercup CEO Alan Suna says that it’s taken a year longer than expected to secure permission to enter the site and test the soil at an old power plant that Silvercup intends to demolish.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/business/media/11studio.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=nyregion&adxnnlx=1213183846-NiqbLJ7GwXip02HZF3n3zg

A Big New York City Movie Studio Is Getting Bigger

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/11/business/11studio.600.jpg

An architect’s rendering of the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, after its expansion.


By JANE L. LEVERE
June 11, 2008


Kaufman Astoria Studios, one of New York City’s three largest movie studios, is moving ahead with a major expansion plan, nine years after it was announced.

The studio, in the Astoria section of Queens, will break ground this fall on a $20 million building, with an 18,000-square-foot soundstage and 22,000 square feet of support space, on a plot of land diagonally across 36th Street from its current building, which is between 34th and 35th Avenues.

Eventually, the studio intends to shut off 36th Street and erect a gate to create a studio lot — a compound with indoor and outdoor sets — and to construct a tower that would combine a hotel and office space directly behind the new soundstage.

Astoria Studios is not the only New York movie studio that is expanding: Two years ago, Silvercup Studios, in Long Island City, Queens, announced that it would build a $1 billion complex on the East River waterfront, south of the Queensboro Bridge. It is to have eight new soundstages, production and support space, two towers with 1,000 apartments, an office tower and stores.

Construction has been delayed, however, by problems involving the removal of generators, owned by the New York Power Authority, on the site. Stuart Match Suna, Silvercup Studios’ president, said he hoped this matter would be resolved in time for work to begin next year.

The newest of the big three studios, the four-year-old Steiner Studios, is renovating a 289,000-square-foot building adjacent to its current soundstages in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, for use as production and office space. It also announced last November that it had joined forces with the Navy Yard to transform a 20-acre segment of the yard into a media and entertainment center that would also contain a studio lot.

All the development is intended to take advantage of tax incentives offered by the city and state governments.

To lure film production away from other states and Canada, the New York State Legislature four years ago approved a 10 percent tax credit on certain production costs, primarily for blue-collar technicians and crew members, and a 5 percent credit from New York City. These tax breaks — which are applied toward state and city income taxes — were sweetened in April, when the Legislature tripled the state tax incentive to 30 percent.

George S. Kaufman, a developer of New York City office and showroom space, has leased Astoria Studios, which dates to the 1920s silent-picture era, from the city government since 1982. A 10-minute subway ride from Manhattan, the studio’s original 300,000-square-foot building holds six soundstages, a recording studio and 50,000 square feet of office space.

The neighborhood around the original studio building has many related buildings, including a 63,000-square-foot loft building, at 35th Avenue between 37th and 38th Streets, that Mr. Kaufman converted to offices five years ago. Directly across 35th Avenue is a multiplex theater.

Other buildings in the neighborhood also have links to the creative arts. The Museum of the Moving Image, across 36th Street from the original studio building, is undergoing a $65 million renovation and expansion.

In addition, the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, a high school established in 2001, will move next January into a new building on 35th Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets, on land also previously leased by Astoria Studios.

Astoria Studios announced plans to build a new soundstage and support space in 1999, but Hal G. Rosenbluth, its president, said it had delayed going forward because “as 9/11 happened, some of our financing came into question.” He added: “Production tax credits later came into play, and the city was able to resurrect some of the financing that was set earlier.”

Mr. Kaufman said Astoria Studios would embark on the public review process required to “demap” 36th Street, in order to create a studio lot, once construction begins on the new soundstage in the fall. He estimated the lot would cost about $2 million.

Later, he would like to construct the new hotel and office building behind the new soundstage. The tower is expected to be as big as 150,000 square feet and 18 stories high; this is now in the planning stage.

Government officials and film industry observers generally laud Astoria Studios’ expansion plans. In the last month, the studio announced that it would be used for two new television series: ABC’s “Life on Mars,” about a time-traveling detective, and HBO’s “Last of the Ninth,” a police drama. A remake of “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” originally made in 1974, is currently being produced there.

“There is a growing competitive awareness that the space you are offering for TV and film production needs to be upgraded in quantity and upgraded in quality,” said Rosemary Scanlon, associate professor of economics at the Real Estate Institute of New York University and former chief economist of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Ms. Scanlon estimates that television and film production is responsible for $6.6 billion of the total $21.2 billion generated by the arts in New York’s economy.

She said Astoria Studios’ plans for mixed-use development could “help offset the risk of putting investment in soundstages.” She said: “Once you build the facility, then it’s a marketing process. Studio space is like inventory; you have to market it every time it becomes vacant.”

Pat Swinney Kaufman, executive director of the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development, said the film industry “can absolutely absorb” the expansions by the three movie studios. (Ms. Kaufman is not related to George S. Kaufman.)

Michael N. Gianaris, a Democratic state assemblyman from Queens, predicted the new development would be “an integral part of the continued success of Long Island City and Astoria. It’s an area of the city growing by leaps and bounds; many of us believe it will be the next big business district for the city.”

[CoolCzech]

"Construction has been delayed, however, by problems involving the removal of generators, owned by the New York Power Authority, on the site. Stuart Match Suna, Silvercup Studios’ president, said he hoped this matter would be resolved in time for work to begin next year."

- First really good news we've heard about this project in quite a while...

[Antares41]

I am sure those generators have something to do with the soil contamination which was the previous reason for the delay of the start of this project. Lots of nasty chemical assocated with generators.

[NYguy]

"Construction has been delayed, however, by problems involving the removal of generators, owned by the New York Power Authority, on the site. Stuart Match Suna, Silvercup Studios’ president, said he hoped this matter would be resolved in time for work to begin next year."

- First really good news we've heard about this project in quite a while...

Still no word of a redesign.

[NYguy]

Still now word on this, but Silvercup seems to be doing well...

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2009/01/11/2009-01-11_lights_camera_more_action_at_city_studio-1.html
Lights, camera, more action at city studios

BY JOHN LAUINGER
January 11th 2009


"The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" were once the lifeblood of Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, where the HBO mega-hits were filmed.

Silvercup CEO Alan Suna remembers how some industry insiders predicted dark days for the studio once Carrie Bradshaw and the girls and Tony Soprano and his murderous minions left the stage.

"A lot of people said, 'Oh, my goodness! What is going to happen to you guys?'" Suna recalled.

But doomsday never came. Quite the opposite, in fact.

As New York City, and the country as a whole, reels over the deepening recession, Silvercup and the other major studio in Queens, Kaufman Astoria Studios, have become catalysts for the local economy.

Silvercup's revenues jumped 17% last year compared to 2007, the year the "The Sopranos" concluded production. The curtain came down on "Sex" in 2004.

"The amount of business we are doing now is far greater than we ever did when those shows were here," said Suna, whose studio hosts production for five hit shows, including "Gossip Girl" and "30 Rock."

The good times at Silvercup reflect the recent success the film and television industry has enjoyed in the city, where 17 major episodic television shows are currently being filmed.

"Business in the city in film and television has never been better," said Commissioner Katherine Oliver of the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.

The success is largely attributable to state and city tax breaks designed to entice production companies into filming in the five boroughs, experts said.

In 2005, the state created a 10% tax break on so-called "below-the-line" costs - what production companies spend on set workers, supplies and production-related costs apart from the big-ticket salaries of actors, directors and writers.

Later that same year, the city added an additional 5% tax break on below-the-line costs. And last year, the state incentive was tripled to 30%, making the state and city more competitive with other markets in the cutthroat industry, Suna said.

The combined incentives have spawned $2.5 billion in new business and thousands of jobs since they hit the books, Oliver said.

"The tax incentives were key to the growth and sustainability of the production industry in New York," said Kaufman Astoria President Hal Rosenbluth, who noted that his revenues have grown consistently since the tax breaks took effect.

The critically acclaimed ABC series "Life on Mars" is being shot at Kaufman, as is the upcoming feature film "Sherlock Holmes" starring Robert Downey Jr.

Fueled by the incentives, employment in the sector increased 11.8% for the first 11 months of 2008 - the largest percentage spike of any industry in the city, Crain's New York Business reported last week.

Both Suna and Rosenbluth said they have had to turn away productions because their studios are all booked. And both operations are planning expansions to add studio space.

The industry has also provided a shot in the arm to businesses that service production companies - everything from restaurants to paint stores.

"When the movie production studios are busy, we benefit from it," said Charles Sommer, president of Public Service Truck Renting in Long Island City.

Matt Dienstag, principal of Lenoble Lumber, said his company recently moved its headquarters from Manhattan to Long Island City to better service the industry.

"Having a thriving film and television industry is really important - not only to Queens, but for all of the city," he said.

[NYC2ATX]

That is SO WONDERFUL to read, especially now.

[NYguy]

That is SO WONDERFUL to read, especially now.

Yeah, any good news is GREAT news these days, especially as far as the economy goes.

[CarlosV]

2 years since last post...is this on hold? Silvercup?


here's our latest neighbour...4615 Center Boulevard...40 stories?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/5843177728_b4b9378765_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceva321/5843177728/)
4615 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceva321/5843177728/) by Ceva321 (http://www.flickr.com/people/ceva321/), on Flickr

[NYguy]

By JANE L. LEVERE
June 11, 2008

Construction has been delayed, however, by problems involving the removal of generators, owned by the New York Power Authority, on the site. Stuart Match Suna, Silvercup Studios’ president, said he hoped this matter would be resolved in time for work to begin next year.

I think timing pushed this one back, as well as a few complications. But the studios are booming, so this could potentially see life again.

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,23,1247,1249&showImages=detail&imageID=2328

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0027_1_w.jpg



http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0024_1_w.jpg



http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/Asp/uploadedFiles/image/3940_silvercup/design/3940_0010_1_w.jpg



It's at least still active in the planning process...

http://a030-lucats.nyc.gov/lucats/ULURPRecord.aspx?ULURPOnly=110010&ULURPALL=N 110010 CMQ&dcpisd=moou4u45zml2egq5se52zv45

http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/33133/1621231-S1300x600.0.jpg?optimalizedperformance=true



http://www.bluemelon.com/photo/33133/1621232-S1300x600.0.jpg?optimalizedperformance=true

[Roadcruiser1]

Those are the East Coast Towers in LIC.

[yankeesfan1000]

That's great news, thanks for that NYGuy. I was under the impression that this had been cancelled. I don't want to take this too far off topic, but the Domino Suger Plant Condo plan thing is also set to kick off next year if I'm not mistaken. Could be really great to see the LIC development, Hunters Point, Domino, and this all start rising along the East River in the next year hopefully.

[Inkoumori]

This particular design is long dead. The land remains active for development.

[CarlosV]

I think timing pushed this one back, as well as a few complications. But the studios are booming, so this could potentially see life again.


thanks, also i could not find a LIC "TF Cornerstone/Eastcoast thread"?

[NYguy]

thanks, also i could not find a LIC "TF Cornerstone/Eastcoast thread"?

A lot of the older threads are gone. You can probably find info posted here if a new thread hasn't already been created...
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=122763

[chris08876]

Silvercup's Tower-Tastic $1B Expansion Makes A Comeback :D

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/silvercup-studios-west-thumb.jpg

Remember Silvercup West, the massive three-tower extension of Long Island City's famed film and television production studio? Probably not. That's because chatter of the undertaking has been on the outs for the past, oh, six years. But now, Queens Courier and Q'Stoner report that the $1 billion expansion is back on the table. The studio has filed special permit renewals with Queens Community Board 2's land use committee. If actualized, the project will bring a 2.2 million-square-foot complex with eight sound studios, an office tower, 1,000 apartments, a 1,400-space parking garage, and cultural and retail space to the site just south of the Queensboro Bridge. :cheers:

The undertaking won the consent of the community board, borough president, City Planning and the City Council when it first premiered in 2006. Permits for the project then lapsed in 2010. It seems the delay is due to the site's current occupants, a 79-megawatt generating station operated by the New York Power Authority, a city salt pile, and a historic terra cotta building. The generators must be decommissioned and removed, and Silvercup will move ahead with restoring the nearly 100-year-old terra cotta building at 42-10 Vernon Boulevard. Because approvals for the project are already in place, this project may move forth imminently, and the timing really couldn't be much more appropriate.

============================
September 19, 2014
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/09/19/silvercups_towertastic_1b_expansion_makes_a_comeback.php