(Jonathan Baskin )
WELLSCOME BACK: Many feared M. Wells would pick up and leave LIC when it couldn’t reach a deal with its landlord, but Sarah Obraitis and Hugue Dufour are looking to stay. (Christian Johnston)
POWER PLAY: Otto Nielsen and Sky Chen are buying in one of LIC’s condos, The Powerhouse. (Christian Johnston)
UNPACKED: Benjamin Haag is renting at Packard Square North. (Christian Johnston)
Just about as fast as they hit Long Island City, Hugue Dufour and Sarah Obraitis — the Quebecois-American duo behind one of the most celebrated new restaurants in the city, M. Wells — recently announced that they were closing shop because they couldn’t work out a lease with their landlord.
Some Queens residents did not take the news well; M. Wells was one of the brightest stars to hit a neighborhood that was still fairly industrial. Plus, LIC is still missing the requisite number of restaurants and bars to make a neighborhood viably hip. How, some wondered, would we ever become Williamsburg now?
It turns out LIC residents didn’t have much to worry about.
“We’re working with M. Wells,” says Eric Benaim of the Modern Spaces brokerage firm. “We’ve been showing them places by Court Square. Hopefully they take something over here. I like to joke that if they move by Court Square, property values go up.”
Benaim might be more right than he knows. If he means that the M. Wells crew have a sense of where the next big thing is in the neighborhood, he’s on the money.
“We’ve been here 30 years,” says Alan Suna, owner of Silvercup Studios and the developer of the new Industry condo building with his brother, Stuart. “I’ve never seen so much change as in the last couple of years.”
“We’re getting ready for 1,500 to 1,600 units that are in the pipeline,” Benaim says. “Most of them are pretty much rentals. About 150 to 200 are condos … These are mostly by Queens Plaza/Court Square.”
Indeed, developers haven’t slowed down much when it comes to LIC. The sheer number of buildings currently under construction (or in the planning stage) is immense. Developers like TF Cornerstone are continuing their march up the south shore of the East River. (When all is finished, TF Cornerstone will have built seven towers and 3,400 mostly rental units; three are currently built and occupied — one of which is now owned by Rockrose — another three are under construction, and a seventh is waiting to break ground.)
“Demand is very strong,” says Patricia Dunphy at Rockrose, another of the big landlords in LIC. “We’re planning to do [another] residential development — and we’ll be announcing something fairly soon.”
And while most associate LIC with the waterfront, buildings in the area around Queens Plaza and Court Square, where Citibank built its tower and where the 59th Street Bridge empties out, are also starting to rise.
Just this summer, Packard Square North, the second of four planned buildings that the Ciampa Organization is putting up, opened its doors to renters — all but six of its 86 units are occupied.
“The more local developers are doing more stuff around Queens Plaza,” says Cliff Finn of Citi Habitats, which is marketing Packard Square North. “Queens Plaza has a different appeal. It’s a little bit more urban. There’s different proximity to the subway. It typically skews a little younger.”
“Manhattan was far too expensive,” says Benjamin Haag, who moved to the city from Washington, DC, and took a one-bedroom at Packard Square North in August. He decorated with mixed-media art by his aunt, Carol Crawford, who, as it happens, is an artist who does a lot of work in LIC.
“The rent [in Long Island City] is tremendously lower,” Haag adds. “That’s what I imagine is the appeal of the area in general. That’s why buildings are opening by the handful.” (Of the remaining units at Packard Square North, one-bedrooms start at $2,410. And the most expensive unit is a two-bedroom for $2,975.)
“I’m guessing $45 per square foot is the average [yearly rent] for a building in Long Island City,” says Jon McMillan of TF Cornerstone, “$60 is more what we’re looking at in Manhattan. You can get stuff at an approximate 20 percent discount.”
The discount has been a big lure for both renters and buyers. Another lure is proximity.
“The commute [to work in Manhattan] is unbelievable. It’s a 15-minute commute, door-to-door,” says Eric Kaden, who with his wife, Heather, and three children, are in the process of buying a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom combination unit at the Industry. The condo building, at 44th Drive in the Court Square area, started sales last year, and its available units range from $399,000 to $1.407 million.
Other LIC condo buildings like L Haus have sold for around $650 per square foot.
“You see stuff at $600 per square foot — which is a discount to Williamsburg,” says David Maundrell of aptsandlofts.com, who is selling 41-18 27th St., a 15-unit condo development where one-bedrooms start at $325,000, that’s hitting the market later in the month.
“People are kicking the tires, and they see they can easily get to their jobs, not just Midtown but downtown,” says Stuart Suna. “The people who are walking around are new faces; it’s more families — moms with the strollers — than the edgy people. It’s more a professional crowd than an artsy, edgy crowd. There’s lots less body paint and body piercing.”
“As this thing gets developed, it becomes more and more appealing to families,” McMillan says, referring to the sheer number of units on their way. “People who moved in early couple up. They have children and they decide to stay. That drives [developers] to build slightly larger unit product. The later buildings tend to have more bedrooms for children and families.”
Indeed, along with TF Cornerstone’s 2012 planned rental building is an 800-student, K-8 public school that will open in 2013.
“There’s been a damper on sales in Long Island City, but the value is going to hold,” says Otto Nielsen, himself a real estate broker, who bought a 1,500-square-foot condo (with 500 square feet of outdoor space) in the PowerHouse building with his partner, Sky Chen, a month ago. The average PowerHouse listing price is $760 per square foot. “They’re exciting buildings. It still has a ways to go, but it’s definitely coming. It’s a little slow because of the economy, but you see new businesses.”
The Ravel Hotel, a 63-room boutique property that opened in 2008 right near the 59th Street Bridge (and was followed by multiple boutique and chain hotels nearby), is doing well enough that it just purchased the lot next door.
“We’re going to build 60-to-70,000 square feet,” says Ravi Patel, who owns the Ravel. “We’ll have indoor and outdoor space, a catering hall, a pool and more rooms. Right now we’re at capacity, and we don’t have enough rooms to handle our [flow of customers].” The pool might be LIC’s first rooftop one.
And more restaurants and clubs are on their way. According to Benaim — who is also selling the Yard, an 83-unit condo building at 2-26 50th Ave. that went on the market this spring and is about half-sold — the Laughing Devil comedy club should be opening its doors this fall, as well as Skinny’s Cantina, a taqueria. Benaim is also working to bring a high-end grocery store to the neighborhood.
But what’s the thing most surprising to the Kadens, who moved from the Upper East Side?
“How much I don’t miss Manhattan,” Heather says. “There hasn’t been a day when I wasn’t much happier here.”