The neighborhood’s dramatic makeover from an industrial wasteland to a residential destination and viable alternative to Manhattan was paved by a 2001 residential rezoning that led a few pioneers, including real estate developer Rockrose, to prop up multiple residential towers along Long Island City’s waterfront, which until then had been a largely untapped market.
But the “cat is out of the bag,” developers said, and now residential development has pushed in from the waterfront, toward the Court Square, Queens Plaza and surrounding areas, where several new residential towers are in the works.
Retail and commercial development makes a valiant effort to keep pace, with a number of cultural institutions creating a home base for artists and an office population held together by neighborhood staples like Citigroup and JetBlue keeping businesses afloat, as young people and families priced out of Manhattan give the neighborhood a closer look.
“The transformation that folks were speculating about 20 years ago has tangibly taken hold, making Long Island City a dynamic and exciting neighborhood which is as close to being an adjunct of Manhattan as possible,” said Massey Knakal Chairman Bob Knakal, who has sold dozens of properties and residential development sites in the area.
In 2009, Rockrose, owned by members of the Elghanayan family, split into two entities (Rockrose and TF Cornerstone), with TF Cornerstone retaining most of the waterfront properties and Rockrose focusing in the Court Square area. Both continue to build aggressively in their respective camps, with a number of other developers and businesses following suit. TF Cornerstone owns five residential buildings along Center Boulevard (including one condo building, The View), the street that winds along the waterfront. When two more buildings in the pipeline hit the market, it will bring the number of units the firm owns along its “East Coast” waterfront community to 3,500, said the firm’s chairman, Tom Elghanayan. “The idea is that this is not West Queens—it’s the East Coast of Manhattan,” Mr. Elghanayan said. “We appeal to the same market as the high-end clientele of Manhattan.”
Rockrose’s Linc LIC, a 790-unit residential building, will boast panoramic Manhattan views, a long list of upscale amenities and a 15,000-square-foot supermarket, with rents ranging from $1,900 for a studio to $3,400 for a two-bedroom.
Rockrose also is building a 950-unit residential building at 43-25 Hunter Street; Eagle Loft, a warehouse-to-residential conversion; and retrofitting a number of retail spaces located within a stone’s throw of one another in Court Square, an area where the 50-story Citigroup tower at One Court Square once stuck out like a sore thumb, amid low-lying warehouses and car repair shops. But, beneath the surface, a melting pot of artists and creative types has worked together in the neighborhood for many years.
Tishman Speyer also owns a site in Court Square slated for a 3.5-million-square-foot project, the first phase of which was the building at 2 Gotham Center, which was sold to Canadian REIT H&R in 2011 for $415.5 million and later leased to the city’s health department.
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