The 39,579-square-foot hotel at 37-11 23rd Street is on track to join northern Long Island City’s mushrooming crop of lodgings. Construction permits categorize the 93-unit property as a “transient hotel,” a term generally used to describe shelters. The 11-story building towers over the industrial northwest corner of Long Island City.
The project is designed by MS Savani Architect, PC, which specializes in Queens-area hotels. New Generation Development LLC is listed as the owner, with Sunny Builders NY Corp attached as the general contractor.
37-11 23rd Street on-site rendering.
The building occupies 48 percent of the 6,883-square-foot, mid-block lot located on the east side of the street, leaving space for front and rear yards. The on-site rendering shows a landscaped plaza along the street, though part of it would likely contain the 400-square-foot, two-car parking area indicated in the permits. No indoor parking is included.
The staggered west façade rises 114 feet to the parapet. The permit-indicated 136-foot height likely includes the rooftop bulkheads. 34,368 square feet of hotel space translates into a floor-to-area ratio of 4.99.
Two street-facing loggia bays lend visual interest to the otherwise conventional, steel-framed structure.
Looking northwest from Crescent Street.
The building sits at the junction of several neighborhoods. 36th Street runs a block north and separates Long Island City from Astoria, although the border between the two is rather fluid.
The project sits at the eastern boundary of Ravenswood, which hugs the East River waterfront in northwest Long Island City and southwest Astoria. Ravenswood’s manufacturing blocks run up against the mixed residential-manufacturing enclave of Dutch Kills, which takes up Long Island City’s northeast quadrant.
Map underlay credit: the City of New York. Site and neighborhood overlay illustrated by the author.
A wave of development is sweeping across Dutch Kills. The hotel’s rear windows face 37-10 24th Street, where site preparation is in progress for a 13-story, 122-room transient hotel developed, designed and built by the same developer-architect-builder team. The six-story 37-10 Crescent Street nears completion one block east, next door to the six-story Hephaistos Building Supplies facility under construction at 37-02 Crescent Street.
37-11 23rd Street (left) with 37-02 Crescent Street (center) and 37-10 Crescent Street (right). Looking east.
25-10 38th Avenue and 25-11 38th Avenue, two seven-story mixed-use buildings, are under construction half a block farther east. Other ongoing projects within the area include 37-27 31st Street, 37-21 32nd Street, 33-01 38th Avenue, 37-14 34th Street, 37-29 33rd Street, 31-12 38th Avenue and 32-04 38th Avenue.
Looking west from Crescent Street in Dutch Kills. 37-02 Crescent Street is on the left.
The blocks to the south have become a hotel hotspot over the past decade.
37-11 23rd Street is modestly sized by the standards of the nearby Court Square skyline, yet the 11-story structure towers over Ravenswood’s surface lots, workshops and warehouses, which remain virtually untouched by new construction.
Looking west from 37th Avenue and 24th Street.
Looking south towards Queens Plaza and Court Square. 37-11 23rd Street is across the street to the left of the photo.
The building’s prominent position allows for sweeping panoramas. The west view looks upon Ravenswood, centered upon the massive Ravenswood Generating Plant, with Queensbridge Houses to the southwest, Ravenswood Houses to the northwest and the Roosevelt Island and Manhattan skylines in the background.
Looking north toward Ravenswood Houses.
Windowless south and north lot walls rise above a pair of parking lots. No development plans have been announced for either property.
New development is likely to follow in the near future, given the de Blasio administration’s push for denser Long Island City development. The area under current consideration chiefly covers Dutch Kills. Ravenswood is likely to be next in line, given its abundance of undeveloped lots and convenient access to the 36th Avenue station for the N and W trains to the east and the 21st Street-Queensbridge station for the F train, which put Midtown within a short train ride.
Hotels similar to 37-11 23rd Street and 37-10 24th Street are unlikely to rise nearby, as Mayor de Blasio’s administration is pushing to restrict hotel construction within industrial districts. Regardless of zoning specifics, Ravenswood has a decent chance of becoming the next real estate hotspot, particularly if the BQX streetcar is completed.
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