Earlier this week we mentioned that the Long Island City waterfront will have 2,100 new apartments by 2013. Make that 3,000 by 2014. Phase I of Hunters Point South, Mayor Bloomberg's dream of turning the barren southern tip of the neighborhood's waterfront (once earmarked for an Olympic village) into a middle-class oasis with 5,000 apartments, a school, a gorgeous park and more, is officially a go. Today Bloomberg and other officials formally unveiled the largest new affordable housing complex to be built in New York City since the 1970s, and after a heated competition, the residential portion of the project's first phase, which includes 900 apartments in two buildings, has been awarded to a development team consisting of the Related Companies, Phipps Houses and Monadnock Construction. And the reveals just keep on coming!
The luxury towers that have sprouted on the LIC waterfront in the past decade have taken some knocks for being bland, but some big guns have been recruited for Hunters Point South: our arena-designing increasingly famous pals at SHoP, and the spaceship-piloting Ismael Leyva Architects. The first phase will also include parking, retail (20,000 square feet), five acres of that snazzy waterfront park and that extra-funky 1,100-seat intermediate and high school. This will allegedly all be finished by 2014, with infrastructure work beginning next month (gotta have those roads and sewers!), park construction beginning this summer, and the buildings going up in 2012.
So who gets to live here? Well, even though the initial RFP called for 60% of the rental apartments to go to middle-income families, that figure has been raised. Here's the breakdown via the press release (download the document right here):
The permanently affordable units – at least 75 percent or a minimum of 685 of the total 908 phase one units – will be targeted to families with household incomes ranging from $32,000 to $130,000 per year for a family of four; 20 percent of the units will be available to families earning between 40 percent and 80 percent of Area Median Income (AMI), 20 percent to families earning up to 130 percent AMI, and 35 percent to families earning up to 165 percent AMI.
For those already packing their kids' bags, the first phase of Hunters Point South is the 800,000-square-foot chunk of land bounded by 50th Avenue to the north, 2nd Street to the east, Borden Avenue to the south and Center Boulevard to the west. Drop by and take a look! And also sneak a peek at the gallery above for a few glimpses at how Phase I (rooftop sundecks, anyone?) is expected to turn out.
· Hunters Point South [EDC]
· Hunters Point South coverage [Curbed]
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