Building Of $45M Bayside Townhouses Could Start By Spring

BAYSIDE, NY – Construction of a $45 million cluster of townhouses in the middle of Bayside could begin as early as this April.

Forest Hills-based developer Cord Meyer is scheduled to soon go before the New York City Department of Buildings for approval for 36 homes near another Bayside apartment complex, the developer's chief operating officer Anthony Colletti told Patch.

Cord Meyer plans to build in clusters of three on 23rd Ave. in the Bay Terrace neighborhood of Bayside. Each townhouse will be around 4,000-square-feet with a two-car parking garage in the basement. The houses will be directly across the street from PS 169 Bay Terrace School and Bell Academy toward 212th Street, and near the Bay Terrace Shopping Center which is also owned by Cord Meyer, Colletti said.

The developer has already filed for a building permit and hopes to start construction by April, Colletti said. The NYC Buildings Department has already reviewed and commented on the building plans and the developer is drafting a response with necessary changes to those plans that they plan to present to the department "sometime within the next week or two," he said.

Colletti said the final number of homes depends on how well the first six built are received. For now, the developer plans to build the first batch of townhouses and put them up for sale as soon as they become available, he said.

"We could actually finish those by April of 2019 and have people living there," Colletti said of the three two-bedroom units. "Depending on how the sales go, we'll continue or stop after that if we have to."

He noted this construction process is a lot quicker than that of the six-story apartment complex Cord Meyer had originally intended to build before residents of the neighboring apartment complex voiced their complaints.

Cord Meyer had recently ended a ground lease on property that included Bell Apartments, a complex of six-story buildings with 60 apartments in each one, selling the land to tenants of those apartments. The sale left them with 20 percent of the land, which they initially planned to use for another six-story building, this time with 185 units.

But when the developer met with the members of the Bell Apartments cooperative, residents expressed concerns that the building would be too big and causes issues for the neighborhood's already congested parking.

"They had valid points so we looked into just building two-family town homes," Colletti said. "This was a very happy compromise that met our needs and met their needs."

Two-family town homes would cost Cord Meyer less money to build and include its own parking, he said. Colletti noted the shorter buildings would also blend better into the neighborhood.

Colletti said prices for the town homes have not yet been set, but potential buyers can expect to pay well over $1.25 million.