WITH numerous new developments and loft conversions – not to mention a slow but steady influx of new restaurants, bars and residents – Long Island City has generated the lion’s share of buzz about Queens. But just north of that emerging district lies Astoria, an area that’s long attracted a diverse mix of immigrants (Greeks, Italians, Arabs) and, in recent years, a steady stream of Manhattan rent refugees – young professionals drawn in by affordable prices, great restaurants and a quick commute to Midtown.
And now, a new trend is emerging in Astoria: shiny, new condo developments.
New construction is transforming this renter-friendly neighborhood into the city’s latest, greatest ‘hood for luxury residential buildings. Currently on the market are the Astoria Windsor at 30-80 21st St., with one-bedrooms with home offices starting at $530,000; the Ionian Condo, at 32-70 41st St., with three 923-square-foot one-bedrooms with balconies remaining for $516,544 and up; and Hoyt Terrace, at 25-47 23rd St., an eight-unit building with apartments starting at $259,000 for a 751-square-foot studio.
And many more are on the way. Developers are eyeing the formerly industrial buildings across from Socrates Sculpture Park and the area along the East River waterfront. TTW Realty is converting the former Sohmer & Co. Piano Factory – and, more recently, the home of the Adirondack Furniture Co. – to residences, while other projects (including a building designed by Karl Fischer) are in the works.
It all smacks of great things for the future. But with its busy commercial thoroughfares (Broadway, 30th Avenue, Steinway Street) packed with ethnic restaurants, supermarkets, fishmongers, green grocers and major retailers like the Gap and Victoria’s Secret, Astoria already functions as a convenient, family-friendly neighborhood.
Unlike Long Island City’s Hunters Point – where a hipster community is growing along Vernon Boulevard – Astoria is a sprawling, established area with a distinct personality of its own.
Along 30th Avenue, lively cafés with outdoor seating lend Astoria a European-vacation vibe. Further north, the city’s only remaining outdoor beer garden, the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden, draws crowds from all over the city. The southern reaches of the nabe boast the Kaufman Astoria Studios and a smattering of hip hangouts, while the western border – where the majority of new development is happening – features numerous parks along the East River.
“Long Island City, which is being developed, is still a promise,” says Robson Lemos, a vice president at the Corcoran Group, who is marketing and selling numerous condos throughout Queens. “Astoria is not a promise. It already has everything here.”
Another boon for Astoria? New construction here is more affordable than in Long Island City, where new condos can easily fetch above $700 per square foot, compared to, say, the roughly-$600-per-square-foot units at Astoria’s Ionian Condo.
And, while the distances from the new condos to the N/W train stations can be long, buyers are coming in. Jey Tiourchi, a 29-year-old financial systems analyst, had been living on Long Island with his parents, saving up for a place to buy. Turned off by Manhattan’s mile-high prices, he focused his search on Queens.
“It seems like a logical transition going to Queens from Long Island,” he says. “I always hung out in Astoria; my best friend works there, so I know the area really well. I knew it was up and coming, so it made sense to focus over there.”
Early in a search that commenced at the beginning of the year, Tiourchi came across a listing for a studio at Citiview, a 10-unit condo at 12-14 31st Ave., with prices starting at $257,000.
“It felt right,” he says. And though he learned the building had no more units available, he put in a backup application, just in case. Luckily, after a few stops, starts and switches, he ended up there with a one-bedroom with a private terrace and partial views of Manhattan for “around $400,000.”
Tiourchi closed on his unit in July.
“It’s been great,” he says, noting his commute to Midtown has been reduced from more than an hour to less than 30 minutes door to door. “It’s just close to everything.”
Unlike other changing neighborhoods, such as nearby Greenpoint and Williamsburg – where big-time developers carved an entirely new neighborhood of monster condos around the waterfront and McCarren Park – the development in Astoria is, for now at least, largely homegrown.
“The developers I’m working with are Queens people – they know Queens, ” says Jillian Faulls, a broker at the Developers Group, which is marketing the Astoria Windsor. One such local developer is Joseph Pistilli, principal of the Pistilli Realty Group, who is developing a new condo, Pistilli Grand Manor, and marketing another, Pistilli Riverview East.
A rare, brand-new co-op, Pistilli Riverview East, at 19-19 24th Ave., is a 188-unit building that was once the Eagle Electric Building. Prices start at $250,000 for a one-bedroom, and loft apartments – another rarity for the ‘hood – start in the $300,000s.
“It’s in a neighborhood – that’s what makes Astoria unique and different,” says Pistilli. “In other places, people are pioneering, and during the day their next-door neighbor is still manufacturing. Here, there are schools, restaurants, shopping.”
Pistilli’s other project is the Pistilli Grand Manor, a 200-unit condo (formerly the Steinway Piano Factory) at 45-01 Ditmars Blvd. Sales are set to begin within the next few weeks, with one-bedrooms starting in the $400,000 range.
“They’re not the Plaza Hotel – that’s not what we designed,” adds Pistilli. “We built and converted these properties for the people.”
“The people,” as it were, come from all over: uprooted Brooklynites and Manhattanites searching for better deals, as well as new arrivals to the city from upstate and out of state.
But perhaps the biggest cadre of buyers is local Astorians who can finally find places to call their own. (Until the new developments started to rise, more than 80 percent of Astoria’s housing stock was rentals, according to the Corcoran Group’s Adriano Hultmann.)
Lifelong Astorian Mary Stcic, 55, had lived in her rental apartment for 30 years – yet she eagerly watched the construction at Pistilli Riverview East.
“I take the M60 bus over the Triborough Bridge. Every day for the past five years, I kept saying, ‘I want to live there,'” says Stcic, a personal assistant who works in Westchester.
Stcic attended the building’s first open house last October, and she was the first to purchase a unit. (She paid $382,000 for a nearly 1,100-square-foot one-bedroom with a balcony that overlooks the bridge and the pool at Astoria Park.) She hopes to close and move into her new digs sometime next month.
“It’s gotten great,” she says of the neighborhood. “It was fine when I was a kid. But over the past 10 years, especially around the park, it’s really changed a lot. It’s gotten quite nice. When I saw what they were building there, I knew immediately that’s where I wanted to live.”