Rise to power

Photo: Ben Goldstein

You may have missed your chance to snag a flat in Rockrose Development Corporation’s second East Coast LIC apartment tower, which was completed in January and fully rented by April. But don’t worry—there are more buildings going up in Long Island City. A lot more.

“They’re literally building a new city over here,” says Nest Seekers International vice president Eric Benaim, who estimates there will be about 15,000 new apartments in the area within five years.

The Queens waterfront began to change in late 1997 with the completion of the 43-story Citylights co-op. The AvalonBay Riverview—also 43 stories—opened in 2002, followed by the first East Coast LIC tower in 2006 and the second in January 2007. A third is due in November, and the 22-acre East Coast LIC site should be home to seven buildings and more than 3,000 apartments by January 2010. A second AvalonBay tower is nearly complete, and a nearby brick building that once housed steam turbines is being turned into the PowerHouse condominiums.

Those buildings are clustered near the Pepsi sign on the East River, and just to the south some 5,000 apartments, 60 percent of them for people with modest incomes, are supposed to be built on a 24-acre, city-owned parcel near the mouth of Newtown Creek. Queens Plaza is another development hot spot—Silvercup Studios is planning to erect four buildings near the Queens side of the 59th Street Bridge, and the glass-clad View59 condo is going up just north of the bridge’s entrance. The area around the Citicorp tower is thick with construction sites as well, and Benaim recently bought a unit at the nearby Arris Lofts, a factory-turned-condo due to close in June.

All the development is good news to Min Chen, co-owner of Lounge 47, which opened nearly four years ago on Vernon Boulevard. Chen, who moved here two and a half years ago, says the new apartments mean more customers for her bar and the prospect of more local amenities. But has the influx of condo dwellers ruined this friendly nabe’s unique vibe? “Not so far,” she maintains.