Astoria’s Hallett’s Point megaproject delivers on grocery store promise

It’s been a bumpy year for Halletts Point, the Durst Organization’s seven-building Astoria megaproject, but there are signs of life in the development yet. According to the Wall Street Journal, the project has signed a long-term lease with Brooklyn Harvest Market for a 25,000 square-foot store in the first of the seven towers. “We wanted a supermarket that would be able to appeal to a variety of demographics,” Ashley Gee, a Durst leasing manager, told the WSJ.

Brooklyn Harvest fit the bill: The market—which, true to its name, has two previous locations in Brooklyn—offers a “mix of products including organic goods, prepared foods and groceries that could appeal to a middle-class customer.”

The project ran into some snags after breaking ground in January 2016, when the 421-a program that provided tax breaks for developers committed to building affordable housing lapsed. But this past April, legislators hammered out a new incarnation of the program, Affordable New York, which—among other things—would allow the $1.5 billion Halletts Point project to continue.

In addition to the supermarket, which is set to open early in the summer of 2018, the development will bring a waterfront park and a school to the area, as well as approximately 2,400 units of housing, As least 483 of the apartments will be earmarked as affordable.

• Queens Developer Signs On Supermarket at Halletts Point Project [Wall Street Journal]
• Durst Organization’s Queens megaproject is a go with 421-a replacement [Curbed NY]
• 421-a’s revival, Affordable New York, incentivizes low-income housing [Curbed NY]
• Halletts Point [Official]