Thursday, October 24, 2013

Huge Flushing Project is Finally Ready to Break Ground

Eight years after submitting plans for a huge residential/retail project, and just weeks before a deadline to start construction, the developers of the $850 million Flushing Commons and Macedonia Plaza projects in Queens are finally ready to break ground. TDC Development and the Rockefeller Group have announced that preparation work at Municipal Lot 1 in Downtown Flushing will begin next week.

The $850 million project will help to revitalize the Borough of Queens, creating about 2,600 construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs.

The mixed-use development will include condominiums, a town square with a fountain, a YMCA, community center, as well as retail and office space with parking.

The developers are seeking to achieve LEED certification.

The projects will transform what is now the 5.5-acre, city-owned Municipal Parking Lot #1, into a mixed-use development including:

  • 620 new residential condominiums
  • 1.5-acre town square of open space 
  • a fountain plaza
  • 1,600 parking spaces
  • 62,000 square foot, state-of-the-art YMCA
  • 36,000 square feet of community space
  • 275,000 square feetof retail space 
  • 234,000 square feet of office and/or hotel space. 

The initial job will begin to lay the groundwork for the project's first phase, Macedonia Plaza, a 163-unit affordable housing project being developed on a 35,000-sq-ft portion of the municipal parking lot site by Macedonian Community Development Corporation, an extension of the adjacent Macedonia AME Church.

This phase includes construction of 35,000 square feet of space, as well as a new YMCA and park. [see ElectricWeb | Blogger, Oct 19, 2012]

Another 450 residential units and 150,000 square feet of retail and commercial space are slated for the second phase of the project, for which no starting date has been set.

In 2005, TDC Development and the Rockefeller Group won a city Economic Development Corporation request for proposal to redevelop the 5.5-acre municipal parking lot.

The Flushing Commons project then took five years to navigate the city's labyrinthine land use review process.

That came to a conclusion in 2010, when the City Council voted its approval. But then all went quiet.

Under the contract signed between the developers and Economic Development Corp., which shepherded the project through the approval process, TDC and Rockefeller were required to break ground by Oct. 31.

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