Demolition Permit Filed For Disputed Luxury Building In Rego Park

REGO PARK, QUEENS — After years of disputes, a developer filed permits this month to demolish three buildings in Rego Park, including a historic theater-turned-synagogue and several businesses, in order to build a luxury building.

The permits call for demolishing three buildings on a large triangular lot at 98-81 Queens Boulevard, which sits on the boulevard at the corner of 99th Street and 66th Avenue. That includes the historic Trylon Theater, which is now home to the Ohr Natan Synagogue, and several businesses, including Trylon Liquors, Tower Diner and Spin City Cycle bike shop.

Rudolf Abramov, of Bayside-based development group RJ Capital Holdings, told Patch that the 16-story, mixed-use building will welcome back all current tenants into its ground floor once construction is complete.

“We’re talking to all the tenants,” he said, adding that the bottom floor retail space will be open to all of the current tenants that “want to come back after construction. We’ve just got to create the plans and see where they’ll fit into the building,” he said.

According to Abramov, some of the existing tenants have already expressed interest in returning, including the Ohr Natan Synagogue.

Abramov and Rabbi Nahum Kaziev, of Ohr Natan Synagogue, had been at odds about the new development for years, but as of last August — when RJ Capital Holdings first filed a land use application to construct the tower — the two found common ground in the synagogue returning to the proposed mixed-use building, reported the Forest Hills Post.

The synagogue, and Rabbi Kaziev, didn’t immediately respond to Patch’s request for comment about the demolition permits.

Despite Abramov’s claim that the building is in talks with tenants, John, one of the owners of Tower Diner, told Patch that no one had reached out to him yet about this next stage of development plans.

He said that talks of development have been “going on for at least 10 years now” but that he hadn’t “heard anything concrete” about the building demolition timeline.

However, he said he suspected that there would be an option for Tower Diner to return to the luxury building’s first floor, and that they’d have to “see what happens.”

Despite community pushback — including a petition to stop the demolition, which drew over 2,700 signatures — Abramov said that construction on the building will likely begin at “some point in March” of 2022.

He pointed out that fifty-one, or 30 percent, of the building’s 170-units would be listed as affordable housing, due to the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy — a welcome addition in a neighborhood with a “huge demand” for rental apartments, he said.

This isn’t the only instance of buildings, including those with historic significance, being demolished in the neighborhood for housing: In February, the owners of a historic Jewish funeral home in Forest Hills, Parkside Memorial Chapel, filed permits to partially demolish the site to make way for more housing, the Queens Chronicle reported.

At the time, Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, who represents the neighborhoods of Forest Hills and Rego Park, said that she views the demolition with a “heavy heart” but that her sadness is “tempered by the fact that the new structure would create desperately needed housing for seniors.”