New looks at TF Cornerstone’s massive Hunter’s Point South rentals

The buildings, designed by ODA New York, will have nearly 1,200 apartments

Two years after developer TF Cornerstone first filed plans for two towers within the larger Hunter's Point South development in Queens, work on those buildings is, as of today, finally underway.

This morning, the developer broke ground on two new buildings that will rise near Center Boulevard and 49th Street in Long Island City. The structures, designed by ODA New York (with SLCE as the architect of record), will have close to 1,200 apartments, of which 60 percent will be earmarked as permanently affordable, and 100 will be reserved for seniors. The apartments themselves will be a mix of studios, one-, and two-bedrooms. New renderings of the buildings have also been unveiled as construction begins on the site.

"Long Island City is rapidly growing, attracting new residents, companies, and thriving local shops and restaurants," TF Cornerstone principal Jeremy Shell said in a statement. "This project will serve to foster that growth with a diverse mix of housing and community amenities to ensure new and old residents can stay in the community they love."

Those amenities will include a 22,000-square-foot park, designed by Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects; a community center that will be operated by Sunnyside Community Services, which provides senior and child care programs in Queens; supportive services for senior residents; and a new, 572-seat school that's expected to open in 2023.

A bit of backstory: Some kind of development has been proposed for the Hunter's Point South site—which was known, until about a decade ago, as Queens West—and it even became one of the selling points of the city's failed 2012 Olympic bid. But eventually, the middle-income housing that was promised came to fruition: The first phase of development brought in Related Companies, Phipps Houses and Monadnock Construction, a team that developed Hunter's Point South Commons and Crossing, two affordable buildings that opened in 2015.

In addition to the two buildings that TF Cornerstone is developing, another parcel at the southernmost tip of the Hunters Point South site will give way to two towers, developed by Gotham and RiseBoro Community Partnership Inc., that will have more than 1,100 apartments between them.