Falcon Pacific Builders Tops Out Queens Project
Developed by the Saab Family LP, the 50-unit mixed-use building in the Astoria neighborhood is on track to be completed by November.
28-16 21st Street
A seven-story multifamily building in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., has topped out and is on schedule for a fall delivery, according to Falcon Pacific Builders LLC.
“We are thrilled to have reached this milestone in the construction of this new project in Queens for the developer, the Saab Family LP. The project, when completed in late November 2019, will provide much needed affordable rental housing in this vibrant Astoria, Queens, neighborhood,” Carl Schwartz, Falcon Pacific Builders CEO, said in a prepared statement.
Located on a corner lot at 28-16 21st St., the 58,000-square-foot building features 50 apartments in a mix of market rate and affordable units, with 20 percent allocated for affordable housing under New York City guidelines. The property will also include approximately 11,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
Matt Markowitz is the project’s architect and has designed the building to have recreational space, common space amenities in the basement and a private rear courtyard for tenants.
Falcon Pacific Builders and Falcon Pacific Construction are New York City-based companies involved in ground-up construction and building interior renovations throughout the New York City and tri-state area. The firms, owned and operated by Schwartz, Kent Swig and Joe Caraciolo, are the construction arm of Manhattan-based Swig Equities LLC, an investment firm focused on commercial and residential real estate in New York and California. Since 2001, Swig Equities has purchased and/or developed more than $3 billion of office properties totaling more than 4 million square feet and Manhattan residential buildings comprising more than 1.5 million square feet and containing more than 1,200 apartments.
Queens Market
The Queens multifamily market ended 2018 on a positive note with rent growth inching up slightly to an average rate of $2,195 throughout the borough and up 1.9 percent to an average rent of $2,437 in Astoria, according to a recent report by Yardi Matrix.
More than 3,200 units came online in Queens last year and an additional 8,724 were underway as of January. Although deliveries have accelerated sharply, Queens’ occupancy rate in stabilized properties maintained a healthy 98.5 percent in 2018.
Although the Amazon HQ2 expansion project proposed for the nearby Long Island City neighborhood appears to be dead, that submarket continues to lead Queens in development with 4,498 units underway. Astoria is slated to get an additional 1,564 units this year, Yardi Matrix reported.
Image courtesy of Falcon Pacific Builders
