CityView Tower
May 3, 2016 Staff Report
The Long Island City building that will become the tallest in Queens appears to be growing.
United Construction and Development Group have tacked on an additional 20 feet of height to the CityView Tower, a nearly 80-story building planned at 23-15 44th Drive.
Original Department of Buildings filings set the tower’s height at 964 feet, as the LIC Post reported in February. A new application filed with the Federal Aviation Administration in April indicates that the building is now slated to stand 984 feet tall.
As YIMBY first noted, this additional height just qualifies the building as “supertall,” according to Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat parameters. Supertall buildings are 984-feet-tall and above; others in New York City include the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center.
According to United Construction’s project page, the CityView Tower will contain 660 luxury residential units and 100,000 square feet of commercial space.
The project is slated to break ground next year.
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31 Comments
to HappyinNYC,I have lived in LIC all my life and I am not a young adult,
continued… How can you be Happy in NYC. It is dirty, overcrowded, very expensive, has horrible transit, Snobby Yuppies & Hipsters, more corrupt politicians than most cities, overpriced tickets for sporting events for mostly lousy teams..read Knicks, Nets, Giants, Jets, Yanks, up to last year the Mets etc… Yes I am looking to get out when my wife retires. I would leave now.
Continued…Plastic bags are recyclable , but the city does not make a strong awareness to this. Plastic bags account for only 2% of all NYC waste. So take your elitist tone and go to China or Iran and try to speak out there, you will wind up in a prison somewhere. Freedom is not FREE my friend. It has to be defended even if you don’t partake in the actual action of what others do.
Continued… The City Council has nothing better to do than play NANNY to the people here !!! No one should be forced by City or any Government level to do anything !!! Cigarettes , Soda, BAGs etc… If people want to smoke or drink soda or anything they should be able to. I don’t smoke but the right to do it should be theirs only.
To HappyinNYC- You make a case why people don’t like wealthy SNOBS moving into LIC. You sound arrogant and elitist. Its not he nickel it’s the principle. People should not be TAXED, yes it is a TAX. by our horrible City Council.
You actually don’t have a case. My family has been in LIC since the 1950’s. My father and grandfather worked in the original Pepsi factory. When did you get here?
Three City Council members wrote an article in the NY Post Wed. All 3 called the bag fee a tax on the lower & middle income workers. James Vacca & Ruben Diaz Jr & Rafael Salamanca Jr called our supposed progressive trying to impose a regressive fee/TAX. S Haps this also plays into the city being unaffordable beside the rents,which are out of control,
Because the upper class doesn’t use plastic bags? Give me a break. It’s for the betterment of the environment, not a personal attack on anyone. If a couple of nickels here and there makes your current living situation “unaffordable” you probably shouldn’t be living within 50 miles of NYC in 2016 anyway.
Brooklynmc you are right. The way this city is set up the middle and lower incomes suffer. With a bag fee/tax looming and possible East River Bridge Tolls it will get even worse. Our City Council has nothing better to do than make us a Nanny City.
Yes at least put affordable rents for people to enjoy living in their world…
660 Luxury units, I don’t see any affordable units listed. They mentioned commercial space. What will the rents be? Someone mentioned the Luxury rental market is saturated already. I believe it. Where is Comrade DeBlasio’s affordable housing plan?
Very few people are building condos. With condo prices skyrocketing, we are left with little choice but to rent, so rents will continue to climb. We are living in tough times. Stagnant salaries, cost of living climbing. People are getting angry. NYC will begin to suffer.
Well I think that it
esta muy grande!
Are the rentals or purchase units?
Rentals.
True about the wind tunnel. The wind is so strong around the Court Square area. Just devastates the few trees in the area!
The one positive thing about this building is that it will cover up the huge, windowless blank side of the CUNY law school. Way too many big, blank sides of buildings in LIC!!
This whole area is becoming one massive wind tunnel
They’d better secure those cranes.
Why is this being built at all? It will be more of an eyesore than what has already been built!! I thought the market for this kind of luxury apartment was falling.
This building is replacing an abandoned warehouse, a boarded-up apartment building, and a vacant lot. This is an improvement.
An improvement is ONLY some sort of retail or doctor’s office/fire station etc. for the neighborhood which doesn’t include another super tall residential eyesore. We need something useful.
Trust me, if there is a use for it, it will be built. That is supply and demand. Business owners are watching. Whole Foods would not touch the LIC market for years. My guess is that they are re-evaluating. The bigger LIC gets, the more “things” will follow. Having one of the tallest buildings in the country is a good thing if you want “stuff”. Granted, the stuff some of you seek will be more abundant in places like Michigan or Ohio. If you want an old school bowling alley with bowling leagues, it is a sign that maybe you are just old. “Cause the times, they are a changing.”
It really boggles my mind how there is still a “supply and demand” argument. If you read Crain’s New York Business, which is reputable, the luxury market is tanking. I believe real estate blog, Real Deal, also reported it months ago. The “supply and demand” that is happening is for people who want to have a luxury pied-a-terre or Air B&B their luxury apartments. (Hunter’s Point lottery apartments come to mind) And if you think the constant building will bring more goods and services to an area, I invite you to take a walk through to non-touristy parts of Manhattan and gaze upon the retail wastelands. Empty storefronts on every other block, empty due to landlord greed. And what about the restaurants that open in Brooklyn, but close within a year because the rent is too high? I’ve been reading a lot about those too. As MrLIC always says, there is “no planning” here in LIC and it’s the absolute truth. There are already multiple luxury housing developments in progress or planned within a few blocks of this. It’s overkill. It’s just like what is happening with the MTA. They can’t keep up with the increase in ridership and the LIC infrastructure won’t be able to keep up with the increase in development. No one is addressing this or being proactive about it in the very least. It seems it will only become an issue when something happens. (goodness forbid) I’m not sure why that’s considered a good thing.
Anon, yes, after flooding the market for years, the luxury market is cooling, but it is not tanking at all. The ultra-luxury condo market is tanking a bit but I am talking about the $3,000-$5,000 a month rental industry which is staying fairly strong. Supply and demand is not an argument, it is a fact. In 1995 I lived on Avenue A. Man has that area changed. I lived in Boerum Hill in 1997. There was a Caldor’s, a Game Stop and a ghetto supermarket. Now there is an arena, thousands more apartments, tons of restaurants and a pretty large mall. Property values have skyrocketed. The area is buzzing. Downtown Brooklyn was a ghostland at night. Trash everywhere. It is night and day. Yes, people looking to make money flood the market and eventually things settle down, that is natural. I lived in Greenpoint in 2001. That area is completely different today. I don’t gaze upon retail wasteland. The place is alive and cleaner and safer. I wish I had bought back then. Fast forward to today. LI City was a wasteland. Big time. 1 stop from Manhattan it is absolutely amazing it took this long. I live in one of those buildings on the waterfront. They are full. They are popular. They are building more. Yes, I am sick of reading about luxury buildings going up but I am not seeing a lot of nice, historic building being leveled. Am I annoyed? Yes. That is why I am most likely moving to NC, but I am not going to just sit around complaining. Life is not what it was in our parents time. Mobility is important. And, I am in Manhattan every day. I do not see a lot of empty store fronts. Exactly where are you speaking of?
Hardly an improvement. That boarded building could have been fixed many years ago and rented instead of sitting empty for years!! As for “abandoned” warehouse”, it was used until the building craze took hold and was sold for development rights. There is no reason for a warehouse to be empty in a commercial zone other than to wait for the right price to sell it. As for the empty lot, Citi could have developed it but chose not to, instead held on to it until someone decided to buy it. The reason it will be so high is that they are using the air rights of the two lower buildings.
There is no reason to have warehouses in LIC.
That area is zoned for commercial and should stay that way. Believe it or not there are still small businesses that need space. Those warehouses also get used by artists, who the developers use for promo but are fewer and fewer.
Your answer to me is basically “because it is that way now”. Those small businesses can and should move and I could care less about the artists (proximity to Manhattan and cost is why people move here).
Hopefully none.
And how many “affordable” units?