queens-plaza

The New York Times profiled the $45,000,000 facelift that came to Queens Plaza: new crosswalks, bike paths, sidewalks, a pedestrian walkway, timed traffic signals and a park that replaced a commuter parking lot. Since the 2001 rezoning, development flourished along Queens Plaza. Of the 5,000 new apartments, about half of them are within two blocks of Queens Plaza, and developers have already built more than a dozen hotels in the vicinity. Two more hotels are under construction near the new park.

Turning the area into a central business district, however, didn’t quite meet the Bloomberg administration’s expectations. Met Life moved two-thirds of its employees back to Manhattan in 2006, although Jet Blue moved its headquarters into the area in 2012. And according to the Times, Tishman Speyer worked hard to find a tenant — ultimately the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene — for 2 Gotham Center. (Tishman Speyer did not comment on its inaction regarding the rest of the Gotham Center plan.)

Overall, the plaza upgrades have made a notable difference in the area, especially when compared to the days when Queens Plaza was known for drug-dealing, prostitution and its dangerous lanes of traffic. Justin Elghanayan, the president of Rockrose Development Corporation, says this of all the small changes in motion: “They have laid out the canvas that all these developments are going to be painted on.”

A Major Renovation on the Doorstep of Queens [NY Times]

Photo by the Department of City Planning via the New York Times


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