The mini construction boom along Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst continues with permits filed for a nine-story apartment building at 46-02 70th Street, on the corner of the busy, 12-lane road.
North Corona-based developer Xiaoke Tang is planning to build a 76-unit building with a tiny 394-square-foot commercial space. Those apartments will be divided across 51,074 square feet of residential space, with an average unit measuring roughly 670 square feet. Apartments smaller than 700 square feet would mean rentals in any other part of the city, but here in Queens’ new Chinatown, they could be very small condos.
The cellar will hold retail, followed by an apartment lobby on the first floor and a 38-space parking garage on the second floor. The developer is building exactly as much parking as zoning calls for, in an area where residents would actually use it. The closest subway stops are at least eight blocks away and require crossing several lanes of traffic.
Residential will begin on the third story, with roughly 10 apartments per floor. There will also be a shared roof deck on the top floor.
The builder of 46-02 70th Street could also take advantage of an inclusionary housing bonus, but it looks like they decided to stay market rate and construct a smaller building. Anthony K Ng of Architects Studio applied for the permit.
The development will replace three low-slung commercial buildings at the corner of 70th Street and Queens Boulevard, which last changed hands for $3,625,000 back in 2008.
The city upzoned this stretch of Queens Boulevard in 2006, and one eleven-story apartment building is already underway on the other side of 70th Street. A few blocks to the east, another developer has filed permits for an eleven-story residential and hotel development at 78-06 Queens Boulevard.
The bustling boulevard has become a commercial center for Queens’ burgeoning South and East Asian immigrant communities, and it could support much larger buildings than current zoning allows. Apartment towers like those built in the post-war construction boom of the ’50s and early ’60s would help house the neighborhood’s growing Chinese and Mexican population. Census data shows that many of those new arrivals are caring for extended families with grandparents and children, and would likely be on the hunt for larger apartments.
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Let me guess, another ghastly pile of home depot bricks by a no name Flushing architect.