Alma Realty is working on two huge projects along the Astoria waterfront, and now they are venturing much farther east in the borough, to the middle-class neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills, Queens. The Long Island City-based builder has filed plans for a seven-story residential building at 152-26 Union Turnpike, between 152nd and 153rd streets.
Construction is now wrapping, at least on the exterior, of the six-story, 44-unit residential building under development at 50 Greenpoint Avenue, located on the corner of West Street in Greenpoint. A photo posted to the YIMBY Forums offers a glimpse of the project in its final stages, a stark difference from when YIMBY stopped by in November of 2015. The latest building permits list the project at 51,534 square feet, which means its residential units, condominiums ranging from one- to three-bedrooms, should average 1,171 square feet apiece. Amenities include a 23-car underground garage, a recreation space behind the building, and “indoor recreation rooms” on the ground floor. Oren Evenhar is the developer and Karl Fischer’s SoHo-based firm is behind the architecture. A sales office will open in September.
Michael Gerling, doing business as an anonymous Brooklyn-based LLC, has filed applications for a nine-story, six-unit mixed-use building at 37 Lafayette Avenue, located at the corner of St. Felix Street in Fort Greene. It will encompass 17,502 square feet and will feature retail space on the ground floor and a mezzanine level, followed by medical offices on the second and third floors. The retail and office space will add up to 6,683 square feet. Six residential units, all duplex apartments, will spread across the fifth through ninth floors. Since the apartments will average 1,775 square feet apiece, YIMBY predicts they will be condominiums. Amenities include a private residential storage space and a rooftop terrace. Midtown East-based DHD Architecture Design is the architect of record. The 43-foot-wide assemblage consists of a vacant lot and and a four-story mixed-use building (at 35 Lafayette Avenue). Demolition permits haven’t been filed.
Property owner Haralabos Kartsagkoulis, doing business as an anonymous Astoria-based corporation, has filed applications for a three-story, two-unit mixed-use building at 32-12 30th Avenue, in the heart of Astoria. The new building will measure 5,586 square feet. The ground floor will host 2,358 square feet of retail space, followed by full-floor residential units on the second and third floors. The apartments should average 1,614 square feet apiece, which suggests condominiums are in the works. Amalia Bournias’s Woodside-based Topos Designs Inc. is the architect of record. The 25-foot-wide, 2,500-square-foot lot is currently occupied by a three-story mixed-use building. Demolition permits haven’t been filed. The site is located two blocks from the 30th Avenue stop on the N/Q trains.
The west central Bronx has long been known for abandoned properties and deep poverty, and construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway only pushed many of these neighborhoods further into blight and disinvestment. But now, savvy affordable and market-rate developers are training their gaze on Mount Hope and Tremont.
