WXY designs 35-acre urban nature preserve and multipurpose center

Queens, NY Arverne East, a 35-acre urban nature preserve and its brand-new multipurpose center by WXY architecture + urban design (WXY), will be a highlight of Open House New York this year. 

The nature preserve is situated between the Atlantic Ocean and a residential neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula. “Mandated by the environmental review process as mitigation for construction of a new development on this fragile barrier island, the preserve is intended to re-establish native habitat in disturbed areas and to protect areas where native vegetation was intact,” according to OHNY.

The new multipurpose center at Arverne East is a better-than-net-zero building with the first non-gendered comfort station built by the agency. 

A team of landscape designers, certified arborists, horticulturists and ecologists has been working with the Parks Department’s Natural Resources Group, led by the landscape architect Starr Whitehouse.

The public-private partnership developing Arverne East is led by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the Parks Department, and the Department of Transportation. It is a continuation of city investment in the Rockaways stemming from actions in 2003 to facilitate development in the Arverne Urban Renewal Area, according to the project’s three developers: L+M Development Partners Inc., the Bluestone Organization and Triangle Equities.