The commercially zoned no man’s land around Flushing Meadows Park and Willets Point has seen a big uptick in development in the last year, as longtime property owners gear up for the $3 billion redevelopment of the auto body shops next to Citi Field. New building applications were filed today for two properties nearby at 131-10 and 131-32 Avery Avenue, just east of Flushing Meadows Park between 131st Street and College Point Boulevard.
Plans call for two neighboring six-story buildings with a mix of commercial and community facility space. They’ll take up about half the block, replacing a series of single-story wholesale shops that sell lighting, carpets and furniture. Both will rise 80 feet into the air and house retail on the ground floor, followed by five floors of medical offices.
The development at 131-10 Avery will be larger, spanning 51,936 square feet total with 40,843 square feet of community facility space. It will also have 21 parking spots in the cellar, which seems valuable for doctors’ offices in a somewhat difficult-to-reach area of Flushing.
Next door at 131-32, there will be 26,460 square feet of community facility space and 8,161 square feet of ground floor commercial. No parking, but it will have the same layout as its neighbor, with less square footage.
The developer is Wilson Realty Management, who picked up the stretch of commercial buildings for a combined $11,250,000 back in October 2013. Haworth, New Jersey-based T.F. Cusanelli and Filletti Architects are handling the design.
The gigantic Willets Point project is expected to bring 2,500 apartments, including 875 affordable ones, to the neighborhood, in addition to community facilities, retail, a hotel and six acres of public open space. And in downtown Flushing, the city is redeveloping a parking lot at Union Street and 139th Avenue into Flushing Commons, a mixed-use complex with 600 apartments and 500,000 square feet of retail.
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