Real Estate
Rising Higher
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I NOVEMBER 2017 15
BY ANGELA MATUA
AMATUA@QNS.COM
Hunters Point South in Long Island
City, the largest affordable housing unit
to be built in New York City since the
1970s, will get a major redesign.
The second phase of construction,
which will include almost 1,200 units,
was originally spread out into two tow-ers
and another building perched in
between. But a rail tunnel owned by
Amtrak underneath the site, in addition
to a power line owned by the New York
Power Authority, caused designers to
go back to the drawing board, accord-ing
to Crain’s.
TF Cornerstone and architects
ODA Architecture decided to con-struct
several apartments on a con-crete
slab above the rail tunnel so
that Amtrak could still gain access
to the structure. But the New York
Power Authority did not give devel-opers
permission to move forward
with that plan.
Now, the two residential towers
will stand 55 and 44 stories instead
of 41 and 35 stories. Mayor Bill de
Blasio announced that 60 percent of
the 5,000 units constructed as part
of the Hunters Point South project
would be considered affordable to
low- and middle-income families. Out
of the 1,200 units constructed as
part of this phase, 800 units will be
affordable.
The second phase will also include
a $60 million elementary school at
57th Avenue and Center Boulevard,
which is set to be completed by 2020.
According to a spokesperson for
ODA Architecture, the space between
the two buildings will host a residen-tial
courtyard, the school yard and
entrance, a retail pavilion with outdoor
seating and a public plaza.
TF Cornerstone will begin con-structing
the housing units in 2018.
Photo courtesy of Tomorrow Visualization
