Big LIC Warehouse To Be Demolished By Neighborhood Developer: Plans

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — A large Long Island City warehouse building will soon be torn down by a prolific neighborhood developer, according to city records.

Developer Chris Jiashu Xu filed plans Wednesday to tear down the five-story building at 42-53 24th St. — a 76,000-square-foot structure near Queens Plaza that dates to the 1920s.

Xu’s company paid $40.1 million in January to acquire the warehouse and an adjacent parking lot, city records show.

His ultimate plans for the site are unclear, but Xu is no stranger to the neighborhood’s real estate market — he is the developer behind Skyline Tower, a 778-foot skyscraper near Court Square that wrapped up construction last summer as Queens’s tallest building. (Though it may later be surpassed by an 800-foot tower a few blocks away on Orchard Street.)

Xu also filed plans months ago for a nine-story apartment building on 21st Street and 46th Road, across from MoMA PS1.

The warehouse building has been home in recent years to businesses including the custom framing shop Downing Frames and the craft furniture maker France Furniture; their fates given the pending demolition were not clear.