Real Estate
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I DECEMBER 2017 17
It would also add approximately
335,000 square feet of space for cre-ative
production and light industrial uses.
Kirby said the company would like to
keep its existing tenants and attract other
manufacturing and tech clients that want
to call Long Island City home.
“We certainly love our tenants that
we have now and can see many of them
fitting in very well in this framework and
this environment,” she said.
The neighborhood is often criticized
by existing tenants as being a bedroom
community. Many of the new develop-ments
slated for construction include so
many amenities – a gym, laundry room,
restaurants – that residents don’t need to
leave their homes. But the Plaxall family
does not want to replicate that model.
“One of the things we hear in the com-munity
is that the new developments are
sort of designed so that the tenants never
have to leave the building,” said Pfohl, who
lives in Long Island City for part of the
year. “I think we really want to create a
district where the tenants want to leave the
building and get out. There will be exciting
retail and there will be vibrancy outside.”
The ground floor of each building will
include a variety of retailers. The plan also
features approximately 30,000 square
feet for community facility space like a
daycare center and an additional 40,000
square feet will be designated for arts and
cultural uses.
Buildings along Vernon Boulevard will
be capped at 350 feet to retain the area’s
character, and the largest tower along
the waterfront will rise 695 feet. Loft
style spaces will be located in the base of
each building to attract manufacturing and
industrial tenants who require more space.
“We want to evoke the industrial heri-tage
of this area,” Kirby said. “We want the
structures to look unique, not to make
them your typical glass tower.”
Plaxall is also giving one of its buildings
on 11th Street to the School Construc-tion
Authority to build an approximately
700-seat school.
Long Island City residents have wit-nessed
a great deal of change in the
last few years. Queens West brought
Gantry Plaza State Park, Hunters Point
South Park and thousands of new units
to the waterfront.
Recently, Mayor Bill de Blasio an-nounced
a new project along 44th Drive
that would transform two city-owned lots
into a 1.5-million-square-foot development
with mixed-income housing, office and
artist space and a new school.
That plan has received pushback from
many residents who say the city should
have gathered more community input
before presenting the plan. It will have to
go through a public review process before
construction can begin.
The Plaxall family also anticipates that
there will be anger among some residents
but argues that they had extensive talks
with the city to refine the plan.
“We understand there will be some
concerns from the community, but at the
same time I think it’s probably very un-usual
for private land to deliver as many
public benefits as we are,” Pfohl said. “It’s
a message we’re trying to get across as
people take a look at what we’re hoping
to achieve here. They’ll understand why it
maybe has to be as big as it is.”
The ULURP process is anticipated to
start in April and if the project is approved,
construction on the first 500 housing
units will begin in 2020. Plaxall says ap-proximately
2,200 to 2,600 permanent
jobs and 10,000 construction jobs would
be created as a result of the project. They
also estimate that $450 million per year
would be generated.
Plaxall will host several “informal drop-in
sessions” to speak to their neighbors
about the plan. Some local community
leaders have already voiced their support
for the plan including Mitchell Taylor, the
founder of Urban Upbound, Christopher
Hanway, executive director of Jacob A.
Riis Neighborhood Settlement, Kadie
Black, chair of Gantry Parent Associa-tion
and Jukay Hsu, founder and CEO
of Coalition for Queens.
“Through our plan, the new Anable
Basin would be a place where people live
and work in the same place – enhancing
quality of life, productivity and easing the
demands on transit and energy infra-structure
by placing workplaces close to
home,” Drescher said.
revamp Long Island City’s
ambitious 15-year project
Photos courtesy of WXY Architecture + Urban Design
