It’s quite the view from an apartment window at the Willets Point Commons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You can see Etihad Park where NYCFC is going to open next summer, Citi Field, we are going to build a new building, hopefully to start that next year. We’re going to build a hotel on the corner and so you can see Willets Point really shaping up here,” said Frank Monterisi, the executive vice president at Related Companies.<\/p>\n
Willets Point Commons is a new affordable housing development with 880 apartments near Citi Field in Queens. The first two all-affordable apartment buildings completed at the site now have tenants.<\/p>\n
The project is being developed in partnership with the city by Queens Development Group, a joint venture between Related Companies and Sterling Equities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For decades, the Willets Point area near Citi Field in Queens was known as the Iron Triangle, an industrial area with auto repair shops, warehouses and undeveloped lots. That is changing with the city’s multi-phase redevelopment of the site, featuring housing and a new soccer stadium.<\/p>\n
“This whole district, the Willets Point District, is a 60-acre district. We, in partnership with the city of New York, are developing about half of it. And these are the first two buildings to open in the district, which we opened about two months ago. And obviously, NYCFC’s new home is here. And we are going to be building housing in and around the stadium,” said Monterisi, who grew up in Queens not far from the site.<\/p>\n
There will eventually be around 2,500 apartments, all affordable, including nearly 10% set aside for seniors. Also in the works is a new school.<\/p>\n
Inside the buildings, there are amenities like roof decks for barbecues and gatherings and a garden club, plus a gym, kids’ room, co-working space and party room. Inside the apartments, there are features like washers and dryers.<\/p>\n
“Our mission really is when we are building an affordable project like this, that we build it to the same standards that we would build a market-rate project,” said Monterisi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monterisi added that the partnership believes the tenants will be in Willets Point for a long time, as they are pioneers of sorts in a new neighborhood surrounded by stadiums and close to LaGuardia Airport and a 7 train stop. The project has been in the works for years, as new infrastructure had to be put in place to make it all happen.<\/p>\n
“We raised this site, the whole thing, out of the floodplain. So this site, if you came here five years ago, you would be twenty feet down,” said Monterisi of the street in front of the buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Residents at Willets Point Commons were chosen through a housing lottery, with applications submitted through the NYC Housing Connect system.<\/p>\n
The separate Metropolitan Park project is also in the works from Mets owner Steve Cohen and Hard Rock International, featuring a hotel, casino and public parkland being built in parking lots around Citi Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s quite the view from an apartment window at the Willets Point Commons.\u00a0 “You can see Etihad Park…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":968879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,21399,7448,9829,405,403,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,95593,52,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-968878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-human-interest","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-roger-clark","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117008585763085973","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/968879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}