TheRealDeal.com - Ascent Nabs $48M Construction Loan for LIC Condos→

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What’s a condo developer to do when a pandemic injects uncertainty into the market? One decided to go bigger in a neighborhood already inundated with residential projects.

Ascent Development has secured $48.2 million in new loans to construct a 130-unit condo building in Long Island City, according to financial documents recorded Monday.

That’s 30 percent more apartments than when Ascent first filed plans for the building in 2019.

“During the pandemic when everything slowed and financing became harder to find, we went back to the drawing board and added more units,” said Ascent principal Tien Vominh. The developer also added five floors to what had been a 20-story project.

TheRealDeal.com "Ascent Development files plans for another new LIC resi project"→

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Ascent Development wants to construct a 20-story apartment building at 45-31 Davis Street, according to a pre-filed application filed over the weekend with the city’s building department.

The project, which will stand across the street from the Wolkoff Group’s 5Pointz development, will span roughly 76,300 square feet and hold 92 units. It also will have designated space for a yoga studio, play room and lounge.

The LIC-based development firm did not immediately return a request seeking comment.

Modern Spaces is marketing the project, though it has not been decided yet whether the units will be condominiums or rentals, said Eric Benaim, the firm’s CEO.

The project will sit on an assemblage of parcels and most recently, in January Ascent closed on acquiring two nearby lots for about $6.5 million, according to city records. The lot 45-31 Davis Street is in contract, said Marcus & Millichap’s Jonathan Eshaghian, who is brokering the deals.

The filing comes amid a heightened focus on residential transactions and development in the neighborhood. LIC has transformed over the past few years from an industrial-heavy region to a haven for residential developers. There are 6,566 units under construction in LIC, of which 19 percent are linked to condominium plan filings with the state, according to an analysis by The Real Deal from December.

Adding to the area’s popularity, last year online retail giant Amazon announced it would place one of its two new headquarters in the neighborhood.

Last week another Queens-based developer, Shibber Khan’s the Criterion Group, pre-filed plans for what will be one of the largest self-storage facilities in the city. The new 255,000-square-foot project, at 31-08 Northern Boulevard in LIC, will rise nine stories tall.

The Jackson At 11-51 47th Avenue Rises Ten Floors, With One More To Go→

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The Jackson At 11-51 47th Avenue Rises Ten Floors, With One More To Go

In YIMBY’s recent rundown of Long Island City development, we tallied seventeen structures of eight stories and above that have topped-out in the Court Square area within the past twelve months. It appears that The Jackson, which is taking shape at 11-51 47th Avenue, will be the next to join the list. The structure doubled in size between August 15th and the start of October, growing from five to ten floors, so we expect to see the remaining penthouse floor and the service bulkhead rise in the coming weeks. The 53-unit condo project is being developed by Charney Construction and Development, in conjunction with Ascent Development and Tavros Capital, while the industrial-inspired design was crafted by Chris Fogarty of Fogarty Finger.

According to building permits, the proposed 70,000 square feet of floor space would be mostly occupied by the 52,870-square-foot residential portion. This area would be split between one- to four-bedroom apartments on floors two and above, topped by a penthouse. A 1,244-square-foot retail space would anchor the ground floor, sharing space with a 22-car garage.

Although concrete-frame high-rises are common in Long Island City, most of them conceal the structure behind an applied curtain wall. At The Jackson, the square grid of concrete lintels would remain exposed, framing floor-to-ceiling, loft-like windows, set within black mullions that match black steel lintels running along the floor plates. As a final accent, wood panels would run from base to pinnacle. The building is massed as a roughly square block, chamfered at the corner where the 10,853-square-foot lot meets Jackson Avenue, which gives the project its name. The six-lane avenue is addressed with landscaped decks situated upon setbacks, accessible from the 9th and 11th floors.

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LICpost.com "Developer Gets Demolition Permits As Condo Building Is On Track"

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A small building located at 11-51 47th Avenue is about to be demolished to make way for an 11 story condo complex.

An application filed with the Department of Buildings to raze the structure was approved Tuesday.

The small building will be replaced by a 54 unit condo development. Half the units will be one-bedrooms and the remainder being two and three bedroom units. There will be about 1,280 square feet of ground floor retail space.

The building will sit at the intersection of 21st Street, 47th Avenue and Jackson Avenue. It will be developed by Charney Construction & Development and Ascent Developments—two Long Island City firms.

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TheRealDeal.com "Condo Developers Have Big Plans For Long Island City"

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With Long Island City land prices blowing up and the neighborhood’s demographics shifting to an older, more monied crowd, developers are increasingly considering condo development in this area dominated by rental apartments. Developer Sam Charney, who is building condos in the neighborhood with partner Ascent Development, said: “We witnessed this neighborhood go from a renter’s neighborhood where people who couldn’t afford to be in Manhattan moved here in their mid-20s… Now they’re in their mid-30s, having children, and they’ve saved up a little money,” according to Bloomberg. 

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Bloomberg.com "Condos Coming to NYC's Long Island City After Rental Boom"

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After nine years of working on apartment developments in New York’s red-hot Brooklyn, Sam Charney has moved on to a new mission, in a different borough.

Charney, with partner Ascent Development, is building condominiums in the rental-saturated neighborhood of Long Island City in Queens, on a wager that the area is starved for for-sale housing. The team is completing a three-unit building on 47th Road and plans to build a 54-condo tower about three blocks away, encouraged by a growing pool of potential buyers.

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NYPost.com "Long Island City is a Rising Star in Real Estate"

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When Eric Benaim began brokering apartments in Long Island City, back in 2006, convincing people to move there required imagination.

“I had to paint a picture of what this neighborhood would eventually be like,” he says, recalling how desolate it looked. “I don’t have to do that anymore,” he adds.

Today, the East River waterfront brims with sleek high-rises, some of which rival those of Manhattan in grandeur. “Buildings here have so many amenities, they’re almost like cruise ships,” says Benaim, founder of the LIC-based brokerage Modern Spaces.

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