Image: NYCEDC

Municipal parking lot would be replaced with multi-building development offering market-rate and affordable housing and 1.5 acres of open space. On June 23, 2010, the City Planning Commission approved two separate but related proposals that would facilitate the redevelopment of a 5.5-acre, 1,101-space municipal parking lot bounded by 37th and 39th Avenues and Union and 138th Streets in downtown Flushing, Queens. The Commission approved the City Economic Development Corporation, Rockefeller Group Development Corporation, and TDC Development Corporation’s proposal to build a 1.89 million sq.ft. mixed-use project, known as Flushing Commons, on the parking lot. The Commission also approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s proposal to allow the Macedonia AME Church to build an affordable housing project, known separately as Macedonia Plaza, on a portion of the lot not set aside for the Flushing Commons project.

In 2004, the City’s Downtown Flushing Task Force targeted the 5.5- acre municipal lot for redevelopment. After a formal RFP process in June 2005, EDC selected Rockefeller and TDC to redevelop the lot. The proposal would include replacing the lot with a five-building complex, ranging in height from five to seventeen stories, surrounding 1.5 acres of publicly accessible open space. The project would provide 620 units of market rate housing, 405,000 sq.ft. of commercial space, a YMCA, and a 1,600-space underground garage. (read more…)