Astoria's Huge Halletts Point Development Inches Forward, Plans Show

ASTORIA, QUEENS — A huge development that will help reshape Astoria's Halletts Point peninsula is inching forward, even after reports that the seven-building project had stalled.

The Durst Organization, which is building the aptly named Halletts Point project, filed plans this week to demolish a low-rise warehouse on First Street and 27th Avenue, on the northwestern corner of the Astoria waterfront. The site will be used as a staging area for 20 and 30 Halletts Point— the project's third and fourth buildings, which will start construction later this spring, a Durst spokesperson told Patch.

It is the latest sign of life for the 2,000-unit project, which has faced delays amid a dispute with ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio over subsidies that Durst sought in exchange for including affordable units.

So far, just one of the buildings has been completed: the 22-story building at 10 Halletts Point, which began leasing its 405 apartments in 2019.

Meanwhile, work has quietly chugged along on the development's second building at 3-24 27th Ave., a 14-story structure being built atop a former parking lot on the NYCHA Astoria Houses campus. That fully affordable building will open later this year, reserved for people earning between 40 and 60 percent of the area median income, and with a 50-percent preference for NYCHA residents, according to Durst spokesperson Jordan Barowitz.

The Durst project is one of three separate developments in various stages of planning on the Halletts Point peninsula. Halletts North, a 1,400-unit project that would be built on the peninsula's north side, is in the early stages of its public review, while the multi-building Astoria Cove project a few blocks northeast recently stirred to life after a yearslong delay.

Delays to Durst's Halletts Point development have mostly affected the final three buildings, on which work has not yet begun. which will include two mixed-income towers and another that is 100-percent affordable, Barowitz said.

Two of the final buildings, 40 and 50 Halletts Point, will be built on the site of the warehouse where demolition recently began.

The Halletts Point development was made possible in 2013, when the city approved a rezoning allowing for hundreds of housing units to be built on the largely industrial peninsula. Initially pushed by Lincoln Equities, Durst bought the site from that company months later.

Have an Astoria news tip? Email reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.