Hot Neighborhood
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I AUGUST 2017 31
What caused the Long Island City
Luxury Market to greatly expand
in such a short period?
Considering that LIC has always
enjoyed extremely convenient subway
access to the office markets in Manhat-tan
(which is noted in the New York
Magazine cover from 1980) and while
transportation is very important, it was
not the main catalyst for the major gains
in the Long Island City luxury market in
recent years…….
At the same time that Manhattan and
even a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn
experienced astronomical price increas-es,
an interesting thing happened in LIC,
17.5 acres of waterfront parks were fin-ished,
a highly regarded Pre-K through
8th grade public school opened in TF
Cornerstone’s development on Center
Boulevard, and there were numerous
completions in the rental market (cap-tive
audience for the condo market)
and a few condo developments were
completed as well (but not enough to
satisfy demand). And, all of the develop-ment
activity finally activated the retail
scene with businesses that actually
cater to area residents.
The upshot is that as the result of sig-nificant
public and private investments
in Long Island City, the neighborhood
has become a preferred location for
discerning renters and buyers.
What happens next?
Judging by the amount of public
works projects and development that
is underway or in the pipeline, Long
Island City will continue to grow and
prosper. Following is a summary of sev-eral
projects that will fuel LIC’s further
expansion:
1. Hunters Point South Phase 2. Con-struction
has started on an additional
5 acres of riverfront parkland and TF
Cornerstone was selected as the de-veloper
of a new development that will
feature 1,197 apartments, retail and a
new school.
2. Tishman Speyer’s massive 3
building development, The Jackson, at
Queens Plaza, features 1,800 apart-ments
and its sister office development,
The JACX, features 2 high rise office
towers where WeWork has already
signed on.
3. A brand new 22,000 square foot
library designed by Steven Holl Archi-tects
will open in 2018 in Gantry Plaza
State Park.
4. The Durst Organization is moving
ahead with a 63-story 1 million square
foot mixed-use building at the Clock
Tower site.
5. Jerry Wolkoff is developing 5pointz
directly across from MoMA PS1 with two
towers of 47 stories and 41 stories. The
development will feature 1,000 apart-ments
and 50,000 square feet of retail.
6. Chris Xu is developing One Court
Square, 23-15 44th Drive, consisting of
78 floors, 774 apartments and 20,000
square feet of retail space.
7. As per BuzzBuzzNews, the impend-ing
shutdown of the L train in Brooklyn
will significantly increase demand for
real estate in Long Island City.
Long Island City has evolved from
a nascent market less than 10 years
ago to a robust market where year over
year condo sales increased by 72% to
$252 million in 2016. With many neigh-borhoods
in Manhattan continuing to
become cost prohibitive, more transient
and investor-oriented, an even greater
percentage of demand will shift to Long
Island City from buyers seeking a real
neighborhood with beautiful riverfront
parks, a small town vibe, great views,
superior infrastructure and extensive
amenities in which to put down roots.
Real Estate
THE 3 MAIN
FINDINGS FROM
THE LUXURY REPORT
1. The average price of an
apartment in the Top 10%
grew by 44% from $1.296 mil-lion
in 2007 to a very impres-sive
$1.865 million in 2016.
2. In 2009, only 14% of buyers
in Long Island City paid cash
as compared to 2016, when
the percentage of cash buy-ers
increased to 24%.
3. In 2006, there were zero
sales priced at $1 million or
more. In 2016, the number
and percentage of $1 mil-lion+
sales grew to all-time
highs of 116 recorded sales
and approximately 50% of all
transactions. For purposes
of this article, we verified
that the market share of $1
million+ sales as of midyear
2017 reached a new high of
52%.
