Longing For the Next 'It' Neighborhood
By Cara Tabachnick

When Amol Sarva, world traveler and young entrepreneur, decided to move from Paris to New York, he took out a map. Things had changed since he lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan as a college student at Columbia University. Part of what would bring him back to the city, he decided, was the newest neighborhood with the hottest buzz and the most subways — Long Island City.  

Real estate developers, brokers and councilmen have been trying to conjure up excitement for Long Island City — a neighborhood hugging the waterfront in Queens — for the past two decades to no avail. But with new zoning laws enacted over the past two years, allowing residential buildings and a mad frenzy of luxury apartments to sprout up against the majestic city skyline, Long Island City seems poised to become New York's newest neighborhood once again.

Photo by Anne Machalinski

The view from Long Island City is attracting new New Yorkers to its shores.

Watch Long Island City's resident blogger talk about the neighborhood's appeal. Watch a real estate developer discuss the lucrative new neighborhood. Watch a real estate talk about the Long Island City's potential.

The buzz around Long Island City is attracting all types of people to the area, but not all of them are from far away. Many of Long Island City’s most interested buyers are from nearby areas such as Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. Not only is the neighborhood appealing to priced out Manhattanites, but
the lure of the waterfront and luxury
buildings are bringing suburban families, yuppies and overseas jet setters back into
the urban fold, said Rick Rosa, a real estate broker with Douglas Elliman, a group that specializes in the area.

Almost 4,000 new units will be erected
within the next few years. The first buildings will open this year, said Andrew Ebenstein, the operations manager of Long Island City Business Industrial Development. Although people have been slowly trickling into the area — there are no concrete numbers yet — these new developments could bring an influx of 10,000 people to New York City, he said.

"LIC is pretty unique because it doesn't have much of an indigenous population like other neighborhoods," said Ebenstein. "This is sort of more similar to TriBeCa."

Apartments near the Vernon-Jackson subway stop range in price from the $300,000s to the $900,000s for a one bedroom but tend to be in the $600,000 to $700,000 range, said Rosa, the real estate broker. Larger apartments and houses in the area can run into the millions.

Many large Manhattan based developers are entering the game. Rockrose, a major real estate developer in Manhattan, is building its first project in Long Island City — aptly named East Coast Project — seven residential buildings totaling more than 3,000 units at what is presently referred to as the Pepsi Site. The anticipated occupancy for the first tower, a rental, is summer 2006.

"We view Long Island City as an extension of Manhattan," said Kathleen Scott, director of leasing for Rockrose Development Corporation.    

Rockrose has advertised in papers and held events for brokers to bring in buyers from all over, Scott said. They are also trying to create buzz by being the main sponsors for the Young Architect Program at PS1 — a hip modern museum that draws an artsy crowd from all around the city — and other similar events.

"We have hundreds of people that have called at this point and are interested in the property," she said.

But not all Long Island City residents are happy about the influx of people and the new expansion. Among the detractors are members of LIC Artists, a group founded 20 years ago to showcase area artists and to organize community events.

“I have a seen quite a few artists last year who were displaced,” said Margret Dreikausen, the organization’s founder.  “Their working studios were transformed into co-op buildings.”

Meanwhile, Sarva has moved to the area and currently runs a blog, LICNYC, which keeps tabs on the up-and-coming developments in the neighborhood. Of choosing to make this neighborhood his home, he said, “I just wanted to live somewhere that was better than I lived before."

Howard Adams moved to Long Island City when the area was barren. He now buys buildings in the neighborhood, renovates them, lives there, and then sells or rents them to new arrivals. A few years ago, he said, he couldn't even get people interested in the neighborhood. “Now,” he said, “there is a seemingly endless line of new people vying to rent the apartments.”

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