RXR Realty’s ongoing efforts to construct a sprawling 21-story mixed-use commercial development in the Long Island City Area has very recently passed muster in a couple of key instances. The 42-11 9th Street environmental assessment has finally been finished and filed and the site’s long-sought rezoning permits appear to have been certified as of September 14th, 2020. 

Why the Delays in the 42-11 9th Street Project? 

RXR Realty was one of many names hoping to break bread with Amazon when it tinkered with the idea of a second headquarters in the New York City metro area, only to be forced to seek fertile ground with other clients. Of course, the firm has moved on to other projects in the year since the shipping giant ultimately left LIC. However, the site at 42-11 9th Street, located near the Queensboro Bridge has been waiting to get off the ground for nearly as long, with news of filed plans in the latter months of 2019. 

Recent images of the site released show the structures of the property’s previous owners, Titan Machine Corporation, still present, and reports from last year suggested construction would begin in July of this year, one wonders why RXR is waiting. 

Of course, COVID-19 and the delays in certain types of construction is likely a certain culprit. Since the planned structure would house only retail, office, and manufacturing spaces, there would be little reason to give an exception to a not-yet-launched project that did not immediately suit existing guidelines to progress. A much delayed environmental assessment also topped the list of necessary concerns, important since the site was known to have been contaminated in an oil spill before RXR’s acquisition.

The 42-11 9th Street Project, at a Glance

The mixed-use complex detailed in recently released renderings is massive, comprising nearly 400,000 square feet of area to be leased to different clients. 

Its spaces will be divided between a smaller parking structure, ground floor retail spaces for shoppers, office spaces, and manufacturing space. This combination explains why multiple sources have discussed the filing of rezoning permits, all of them largely to do with allowed floor area rations. This project encompasses multiple types, all housed within a single building. 

Other pertinent details suggest that the finished project will include: 

• A 21-story building, topping out at 330 to 370 feet in height 
• A two- to three-story base, including retail spaces, upon which a taller tower structure of 17 to 18 stories will rise
• Nearly 270,000 square feet of office space
• Just over 70,000 square feet dedicated to industrial space
• Over 4,000 square feet dedicated to retail
• An enclosed parking structure with space for 67 vehicles
• A planned outdoor public space, not featured in any current renderings

Before understandable delays, construction on the 42-11 9th Street project was intended to begin earlier this year. While the completion projections may be pushed back, as far as anyone knows, the intent is still to complete within a single phase, lasting 27 months. Even if they were to have broken ground this month, that would still put the project past its original 2022 completion goal, by a hair. 

There is no news as yet on which construction firms have been tapped to handle this massive undertaking, but it can’t be far off. The start of this particular race has been long-awaited. 

Back in 2016, Xin Development International sought the space between West 44th and West 45th streets in Hell’s Kitchen a gas station once stood. Even back then it was to become the firm’s second condominium venture, perhaps even to rival other similar and recent construction projects in the area, such as The West, which topped out earlier this year. 

In the years since, Bloom on Forty Fifth (formerly Hudson Garden) has evolved into one of the more significant up-and-coming mixed-use projects in Hell’s Kitchen, especially once word broke in 2017 that a “flexible format” Target location would be taking up residence in the ground floor. 

What Are the Details of the Bloom on Forty Fifth and Target Projects? 

With Marvel Architects designing and Leeding Builders Group helming construction, the nearly complete Bloom and Target have traveled a long road to come this far. This has included a period of delays and eventual refinancing in early 2019 that brought Kuafu Properties on as project managers. 

The Target on the ground floor will span 29,000 square feet, and while it will be smaller than some of their more sprawling locations (deemed “super” sized when they began to offer groceries in competition with Wal-Mart). 

Details about its “flexible format” suggest a space that is customized to suit the residence upstairs and other locals, including the following: 

• Men’s and women’s apparel and accessories
• Home items that specifically cater to people living in apartments or condos
• Portable tech
• Health, beauty, and personal care products
• Groceries, to include fresh produce and ready-made foods like sandwiches, salads, snacks, drinks, and more
• Target Mobile and Order Pickup services, useful as New Yorkers continue to social distance

Bloom’s upper floors on Forty Fifth will divide 92 units into north and south towers, each condominium ranging from studios to three-bedroom residences that boast “intelligent design” but no details on what this means. Amenities will include:

• 8,000 square foot, elevated courtyard
• Private terraces for some residences
• Storage spaces
• A bike room for residents
• A dedicated fitness room

Pricing for these spaces are yet to be announced. 

What Remains to Be Finished at the Bloom on Forty Fifth?

The two coinciding projects appear to be in their “finishing touches” stages. While earlier reports back in June showed the building topped out and ready for glass installations, that has long passed, and steady progress has continued since. 

Target spokesperson Whitney Webster confirmed in a statement that the ground floor will be open to the public by the end of the year. “As we get closer to opening the store,” she said, “we’ll have more specific details to share — including how the shopping experience will be tailored to serve local guests and the grand opening date.”

Likewise, Bloom on Forty Fifth’s higher floors are expected to be finished and ready for residents by the end of the year. Photos of the current, quite polished state of the building appear to confirm this, with signs of ladders and other equipment visible through windows suggesting that interior details and installations may be all that remains.

As the year draws into the latter months, resumed and newly launched construction projects in the metro area continue to grow. For a region ever in need of expanded affordable housing initiatives, the Gleneagle Green project in Brookhaven is a recent groundbreaking (from May of this year) that has begun to show clear results in the time since. 

The $30 million Atlantic Avenue project was among numerous affordable housing projects that Gov. Cuomo tapped to fund on Long Island. There is a greater push for both affordable spaces and affordable rentals, specifically. Affordable housing has become a high-priority to re-energize the area—not only serving lower-income residents in the community but also enticing younger New Yorkers to live and work there. This is a recurring theme that CISleads discussed briefly in its coverage of the Manhasset Square project a year ago.

Gleneagle Green – What Are the Details?

Gleneagle Green will comprise about 70 units across nine buildings, suggesting an average of 6-7 units per building. The amended proposal from November, 2019, reveals a number of telling details:

• All nine buildings will comprise mixtures of one and two-bedroom apartments. 
• The complex will sit in a “horseshoe” configuration around a common green area, facing south. 
• There will also be two other buildings: a single story, 7400 square foot community center and a 400 square foot Sanitary Sewage Disposal System Control Building to be housed on-site. 
• The complex will be gated, with exit and entry points on Atlantic Avenue and emergency access established through Patchogue Ave. 
• Roughly two off-street parking stalls per unit will also be constructed. 
• 11 of the 70 units will be reserved for residents with disabilities. 

Other sources promise amenities such as seating areas and structured playgrounds. It will also sit close to Robert Rowley Park and Bellport Area’s Boys and Girls Club. The overall image presented in these plans and subsequent reports have been quite different from recent mixed-use endeavors around the New York City metro area, but it hearkens more to the suburban feel of some of Long Island’s more settled areas. 

Funding assistance is coming from both the State of New York and Suffolk County. 

The Timeline – What Remains to Be Finished on the Gleneagle Green Project?

So far, images of the very beginnings of one of the nine apartment buildings have emerged, with the skeleton of the structure and the particleboard in place to show an idea of the structure it is to become. The buildings themselves will not be the only parts of the project for long, with the roadways, the entrances, fencing, landscaping, and the play areas to follow. The details about a waste management structure suggest a little more work to do in terms of infrastructure beyond merely connecting with local utilities. 

Full completion of the project is estimated to be Spring of 2022.

This summer, construction commenced on another low-income housing initiative in Queens, the likes of which have been in high demand in many parts of the New York City Metropolitan area. Unlike other affordable housing ventures, such as those CISLeads has covered like the Empire State Dairy and Archer Towers projects, Bishop Valero is one of the first to emerge since the start of the pandemic to focus chiefly on affordable housing for seniors. 

Bishop Valero is helmed by Catholic Charities Progress of Peoples Development Corporation and designed by Dattner Architects. The property located at 23-11 31st Road in Astoria, Queens, on the former site of the Catholic Charities Catherine Sheridan Senior Housing parking lot was meant to close in March of 2020. The COVID-19 shutdown delayed these plans in the earlier part of the year. Should another occur, its status should protect its continued progress as an affordable housing project.

Citing affordable housing as one of NYC’s enduring crises, Monsignor Alfred LoPinto, CEO of Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens stressed that the project would “provide much-needed housing to low-income seniors and a supportive environment for formerly homeless,” as “there are thousands of individuals in need of affordable housing in New York City, and we cannot build fast enough.”

What Are the Specifics of the Project?

The $62 million project has secured its funding from Bank of America, Barings, and Richman Housing Resources but also tax credits through the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Renderings show a six-story building with a plain tan masonry facade on the ground floor and brick-red cement on every floor above. The windows are asymmetrical on all the upper floors, giving it a slick, modern vibe. 

• The residences will make up 102 units within the building, with one superintendent unit, comprising about 84,900 square feet in total, all on the upper floors.
• The ground floor will house a 200-seat senior center, run by Catholic Charities Neighborhood Services. 
• There will be daily, on-site prepared hot meals, referral services, educational seminars, fitness classes, and case management services in the senior center. 
• 100 percent of all units will go to seniors making up to 60 percent of Area Median Income (AMI), with 30 percent of the units reserved for formerly homeless seniors with severe mental illnesses.

Rent subsidization will come through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 voucher program.

What Kind of Work Is the Bishop Valero Project Creating? 

Tradespersons and firms involved with the project can expect steady work through the next year, at the very least. Construction and ground breaking reportedly took place in early July. No demo has taken place or been scheduled. Along with the necessary wiring, plumbing, and structural work that goes into a building of this size, there will also likely be alterations to the area around, from sidewalks to any landscaping. The apartments themselves will likely include more than the standard residence by their need for accessibility. 

Currently, no timeline for completion is on record.

Progress continues on the new Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia building at CHOP’s campus at the Village at Valley Forge in King of Prussia, PA. In July, developers held a topping off event for the $186 million project and construction continues toward a late 2021 completion and opening of the 250,000 square foot, seven-floor inpatient hospital.

The new building sits alongside the existing CHOP specialty care and surgery center and will be the anchor of the Philadelphia hospital’s satellite campus. Plans call for 52 private rooms, and include an emergency department, a pediatric ICU, operating suites, and a radiology department.

This building is one of many in CHOP’s expansion into the Philadelphia suburbs in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Ongoing and future projects include a specialty and urgent care center in Abington, PA, a medical office and retail center in Moorestown, NJ, and an inpatient tower in Philadelphia.

The Prime approaches another milestone as it marches toward completion. Since Circle F Capital acquired the property for development in 2016, the mixed-use project at 22-43 Jackson Avenue in the neighborhood of Hunters Point has been gradually taking shape for years now, and the project remains about a year from coming to an end. 

Featuring condominiums for sale on the upper floors and commercial space on the ground, the Prime’s slower stretch to the finish line can at least partly be attributed to the shutdown of construction in the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, where all residential construction, aside from those deemed essential, was shut down. Other mixed-use projects in Long Island City managed to bypass this because their plans included affordable housing. 

Recent visits to the Prime have shown that the exterior details such as guardrails and the facades, which were still in progress a year ago, are taking their final forms. 

The Prime: The Project at a Glance

Circle F Capital’s initial plans for the Prime revealed a structure reaching eleven stories above ground, hugging the obtuse-angled intersection of 46th and Jackson Avenue. The first images revealed in 2017 showed SRA Architecture + Engineering’s designs for a mixture of light-colored masonry and tall, protruding walls of windows, and the developments since have shown little has changed. 

Once finished, the Prime will feature at least 71 residences averaging 900 square feet, ranging from one to three-bedrooms, and are being marketed starting at $675,000. The total square footage for the residences is a little under 64,000 square feet.

The ground floors will feature over 11,000 square feet of commercial space, and with the Court Square subway station across the street and the 23rd Street station just blocks away, this would mean easy transit for shoppers and residents alike. 

Most reports suggest the finished structure will amount to 120,000 square feet of space. Eastern Consolidated suggests new residents can expect centers for business and fitness, a children’s playroom, outdoor spaces, and bicycle storage, but is the only source to claim this. 

One can only assume more information is forthcoming, but at present, even the Prime’s main website remains cryptic. 

What Remains to be Completed on the Prime at 22-43 Jackson Avenue?

Exterior photos of the Prime show that most of the windows and outer masonry have been installed, with the dotted lines of rail-less balconies delineating each of the floors. A large area of the open wall remains where a hoist once stood. No longer needed, this gap is gradually being filled in. 

The area that seems to be the furthest from completion is the mechanical section on the roof, which still shows signs of waterproofing in progress. No information about how far along interior construction and design happens to be, though the interior designer has been confirmed to be Andres Escobar.

Initial reports on the property in the early part of its development projected a 2020 completion date. Right now, brokers and buyers can expect construction to wrap up sometime in 2021.