Long Island City, which burst into existence in 1870 but only became worthy of acknowledgement once the Times took interest in it, will soon have a gleaming new apartment complex next to its tallest skyscrapers.
A 36,000-square-foot site—valued at as much as $150 million and containing 780,000 buildable square feet—is currently owned by Citigroup, purchased with the initial intention of building the third in a trio of office buildings. Now, the banking behemoth has opted instead to sell the property, opening up the potential for a 40-story tower zoned to house a hotel, apartments, office space or retail.
Citigroup currently owns two office buildings in the neighborhood’s centrally located Court Square: The first, at One Court Square, opened in 1989; an adjacent 15-story tower opened in 2007. The former sold for $470 million in 2005, and the banking giant plans to sell off its remaining stake in Two Court Square in the near future, a move necessitated in part by the costly settlement fees the bank was ordered to pay for its role in 2007’s subprime mortgage crisis.
Earlier this week, City Realty revealed renderings of a pair of residential towers on Jackson Avenue, dubbed Jackson East and Jackson West. According to 6sqft, those are are just a pair of more than two dozen high-rise developments underway in LIC’s Court Square / Queens Plaza area.
