Developing Long Island City’s waterfront a year after Amazon

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Assessing Long Island City’s future a year after Amazon

A year after e-commerce giant Amazon withdrew from a deal to bring half of its second North American headquarters to Long Island City, developers and community leaders are working to pick up the pieces and forge a new development vision for the neighborhood.

Now, three real estate firms—TF Cornerstone, Simon Baron Development, and L&L Mag— have launched the “Your LIC” public engagement effort, which will feature four public meetings and an online conversation, to gather community input on the future of some 28 acres of waterfront land, THE CITY reports. That land, controlled by the three developers and longtime Queens manufacturer Plaxall Inc., includes private and city-owned property around the East River and Anable Basin.

City officials and Council members have hosted closed doors meetings on potential plans, but The Wall Street Journal notes that the de Blasio administration is taking a less active role in the planning process this time around, fearing more community pushback. Meanwhile, some neighborhood advocates are urging for a community-driven planning process.

In a statement, the Justice For All Coalition called for a moratorium on rezoning or privately developing the land. “We stand firmly against any for-profit development on the publicly owned land north of the Anable Basin and throughout the city,” says the statement. “We see this luxury hyper-development in our region and across the city as a warning for Queens.”

Your LIC will hold its first public meeting on November 21 at the Queensbridge Houses.

And in other news…

• The death of a security guard working at the site of Extell’s Central Park Tower highlights the problems with New York’s wrongful death laws.
• Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann took his $1.7 billion payout and reportedly checked out a $45 million Park Avenue penthouse.
• Charging Bull may not move after all.
• A jury is now deciding the fate of the landlords and general contractor charged with manslaughter in the 2015 East Village gas explosion.
• A new Citi Bike dock is open near the Broadway Junction transit hub, the first of several coming to underserved parts of Brooklyn.
• Jeffrey Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse could be worth as much as $100 million.
• A mobile home community has taken root below a section of the Gowanus Expressway.
• And finally, Rod Stewart (yes, that Rod Stewart) spent decades constructing a model railway inspired by midcentury New York and Chicago, and it is pure and good.