The burgeoning new immigrant population in Woodside, Jackson Heights and Corona has driven a small construction boom in those neighborhoods, and one developer has decided to capitalize on the area’s growth with an eight-story Holiday Inn Express at 64-06 Queens Boulevard in Woodside.
Century Development Group filed new building applications yesterday to construct the 135-room development between 64th and 65th Streets, two blocks from the BQE. The cellar will hold 13 hotel rooms, and the first floor will host a restaurant, lobby and 16 rooms.
Twenty-four rooms per floor will take up the second and third stories, followed by 16 rooms in the fourth story. Extended stay suites for travelers looking to to live there for a month or more, which are listed as “apartment hotel rooms” on the Schedule A, will begin on the fourth floor and continue through the eighth, with 42 rooms total.
The development will include 93 regular hotel rooms spread across 31,640 square feet of commercial space, for a reasonably sized hotel room of roughly 340 square feet. The 42 extended stay suites will be distributed across 28,529 square feet of “residential” space, which works out to apartment-sized rooms of 679 square feet a piece.
There will be 39 parking spaces and 21 bike storage spots in a subterranean garage, and a conference room, lounge and fitness room in the cellar.
Flushing-based architect Raymond Chan will be responsible for the design. The developer, also headquartered in Flushing, has built several hotels in eastern Queens and is working on two big mixed-use complexes in Flushing.
The project is clearly meant to cater to business travelers and tourists with rental cars, because its website touts the hotel’s proximity to LaGuardia Airport, which is about four miles away, and Flushing Meadows Park, which is about six miles and a fifteen minute drive away.
A 23-block-long stretch of Queens Boulevard was upzoned in 2006 to allow buildings as tall as 13 stories, and this project will certainly benefit from that juicy R7X zoning.
The property is currently home to a one-story auto parts shop, and last changed hands in February for $5,000,000, according to public records.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
