Page 16 - 2021 Queens Economic Development Guide

Innovation QNS
A Post-Pandemic Renaissance: Innovation QNS
The $2 billion neighborhood-focused Initiative will generate thousands of jobs, two acres of open space, community health and wellness facilities and hundreds of affordable
aApartments in the Astoria community.
s part of New architecture firm ODA, and spanning York’s effort to from 37th Street to Northern
recover from Boulevard/43rd Street between 35th the devastating and 36th Avenues, Innovation QNS impact of the will expand the adjacent Kaufman COVID-19 crisis, Arts District and build on Astoria’s
a consortium of some of the city’s rich cultural fabric, including its most accomplished and experienced existing cultural assets like the
developers, business leaders and investors are working on a plan to create both near- and long-term economic opportunity in Astoria, Queens. By channeling $2 billion in private investment, the initiative seeks to transform a largely dormant corner of the community into a a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use creative district.
Dubbed “Innovation QNS,” the neighborhood-focused initiative is
the product of an ongoing dialogue with Astoria’s residents, civic leaders, cultural institutions, small businesses and non-profits to identify the community’s most urgent needs to help shape, build and activate a project that maximizes and expedites relief.
Designed by the award-winning
Museum of the Moving Image and Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. The site currently is occupied primarily by large surface parking lots, underutilized industrial/commercial buildings and vacant spaces.
Thoughtfully Conceived, Mixed Use Space
The plan includes 2,700 units
of mixed income housing – some
700 of which will be permanently affordable – as well as 200,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail and 250,000 square feet of space for the city’s creative industries and other small businesses. The
plan also includes nearly two acres of thoughtfully programmed open
space, community health and wellness facilities, dedicated senior housing, an arts and culture hub, a state-of-the-art multiplex cinema, a new full-service grocery store and enhanced streetscapes.
The effort recently took a major step toward the city’s public review process, which is expected to begin in late 2021. Construction is anticipated to start in 2023 with an initial opening in 2025.
Community stakeholders turned out this past June for the first public hearing on the project, in what was an overwhelming show of support.
The partnership leading Innovation QNS is comprised of:
• Kaufman Astoria Studios, which brought film and television production back to its birthplace in Queens when it reactivated the neighborhood’s long-dormant studio complex in the aftermath of the city’s fiscal crisis of the 70s and 80s and is now one of the area’s largest job generators;
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QUEENS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
© Courtesy of Innovation QNS