Former Dutch Kills Daycare Center To Become 9-Story Building: Plans

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — A longtime home for adults with developmental disabilities is set to be transformed into a multi-story building, weeks after the property was sold to a developer, according to newly filed plans.

Developer Yitzchok Katz filed plans this month for the nine-story, 52-unit building at 38-27 32nd St., on the corner of 39th Avenue. The site, steps from the 39th Avenue N-W subway stop, has long been home to the Cyril Weinberg Day Habilitation Center.

That two-story building will survive in some form, as Katz plans to construct an eight-story addition on top of it, according to the new plans.

AHRC-NYC, a nonprofit serving people with intellectual disabilities, announced in June that it had agreed to sell the property, along with another undeveloped site on the opposite corner of 32nd Street.

Its CEO, Marco Damiani, told Real Estate Weekly that the decision was a strategic choice to "take advantage of the booming real estate market in Long Island City," saying the sale would serve as "an opportunity to become even more focused on the changing needs of the people we support."

Records show that the Weinberg Center building sold for $19.1 million, while the adjacent site, now home to play equipment and parked cars, sold for $9.5 million.

The new building will stand 100 feet tall and contain about 48,000 square feet of residential space, according to plans filed with the city. It will include 33 enclosed parking spaces.

No development plans have been filed for the other property across the street, which AHRC sold to the same buyer.

Katz, the developer, has other projects in the works nearby, including a six-story building and a seven-story building on Halletts Point, as well as another seven-story building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.