Lincoln Equities breaks ground on Hallets Point; $1.5 billion joint venture led by The Durst Organization

Halletts Point ground breaking - Queens, NY

Queens, NY Lincoln Equities Group LLC (LEG) has broken ground on Halletts Point, a $1.5 billion joint venture development project led by the Durst Org. that will transform this waterfront community. LEG conceived and managed the six-year approval process. The first building will open in 2018 and will include 405 units, with at least 81 reserved as affordable housing.

Lincoln Equities Group took a seven-acre dilapidated waterfront site, zoned for manufacturing, integrated the design of its master plan into the adjacent Astoria Houses New York City Housing Authority public housing campus, added a new waterfront esplanade designed by the landscape architects of Manhattan’s High Line, and with support from the local residents, community groups and public officials, created a unique, neighborhood changing project.  

Halletts Point - Lawn Plaza - Queens, NY

The groundbreaking ceremony was a celebratory event, attended by the local Astoria community, many elected officials including mayor Bill de Blasio, council member Costa Constantinides, Queens borough president Melinda Katz, congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, state senator Michael Gianaris and state assemblywoman Catherine Nolan.

The event began with a press conference, in which speeches were heard from Joel Bergstein, president of LEG, Jonathan Durst, president of the Durst Org., Claudia Coger, president of the Astoria Houses Residents Association, mayor de Blasio and the other elected officials.

The overriding theme from the speeches was that LEG had done such an unusually wonderful job working with, listening to, and partnering with the community, and in doing so, was able to gain the trust and support of the local residents.

“This project is so special because it’s not just a series of new buildings going up, it’s a neighborhood transformation,” said Joel Bergstein, president of LEG. “It was built from a grass roots effort of local support and is really about integrating this new development into the community, not co-existing beside it.”

The $1.5 billion development will incorporate over 2,400 rental apartments, including five waterfront multifamily high-rise residential buildings, plus two new multi-family residential buildings on the Astoria Houses campus. 20% of the units will be reserved for inclusionary affordable housing.

The community will also feature 65,000 s/f of retail and community facility space, including a FRESH supermarket, plus a K-8 public school, and will be providing job training for local residents.

“Halletts Point shows that large transformative projects can still be achieved in New York City” said Robert Schenkel, LEG’s senior director of development. “There was a huge amount of careful planning that went into this project, and we would like to especially thank the community and local residents of Astoria for their input, participation and continued support.”