Huge LIC Building Should Be Handed Over To The People, Advocates Say

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — As Long Island City's explosive growth threatens to displace small businesses, artists and tenants, neighborhood advocates have come up with a novel proposal: the city should give up control of a huge building on the Queens waterfront and hand it over to the people.

The so-called Queensboro People's Space campaign centers on the block-sized, warehouselike building at Vernon Boulevard and 44th Drive. Built in 1948 by the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration, it has served in recent decades as an operations hub for the Department of Education, which uses it for offices, storage, and the distribution of dry food to the city's public schools.

But the six-story, 561,000-square-foot building is underutilized, according to advocates from the Western Queens Community Land Trust, which has led the push since its inception in 2019. They point out that the city was prepared to vacate the building in 2018, when Amazon wanted to include the site as part of its proposed new headquarters, until the company withdrew its plans months later.

"The Queensboro People’s Space is a vision that promises to meet so many of the urgent needs of my constituents," said City Councilmember Julie Won, who represents the neighborhood and has thrown her support behind the project, along with fellow Western Queens members Tiffany Cabán and Shekar Krishnan.

Under the proposal, DOE would give up about two-thirds of the building to the nonprofit land trust, which is part of a growing movement that seeks to own and steward land on behalf of communities. The land trust would then renovate the building and rent out space at affordable rates to local businesses, artists and community groups.

There is recent precedent for a similar handover: in 2020, the city sold four Harlem buildings for $1 each to a neighborhood land trust, which plans to convert them to permanently affordable housing.

Momentum grows

Now, more than two years into the campaign, momentum is growing: on Saturday, organizers and neighbors gathered outside the building to release a 49-page feasibility report that the land trust commissioned from Bagchee Architects, laying out in detail how every square foot of the building could be used.

"The building’s wonderfully sturdy architecture, publicly-owned status, and proximity to both the waterfront and Queensbridge Houses make it a unique opportunity to showcase a different kind of economic development—one that is community-owned and led, with deep, permanent affordability baked into the land lease itself," the report reads.

Much of the ground floor, for example, would be devoted to "food justice," a critical goal for supermarket-starved Long Island City. Tenants that have already expressed interest include The Connected Chef, Hot Bread Kitchen, the Street Vendor Project and Hellgate Farm, which would help run a garden on the building's roof.

Uses for the upper floors would include a theater, daycare, artist workshops, music studios and adult-education centers, with potential tenants including Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement, the Floating Hospital, Art House Astoria and Helen Uffner Vintage clothing.

All told, the building would be home to 850 jobs, generating about $11.5 million annually in rent income, organizers project.

But big hurdles remain — starting with convincing the DOE to relinquish most of its space. Jenny Dubnau, a Queens-based artist and land trust organizer, told Patch that the group is "very anxious to have a sitdown with the DOE," but has not yet spoken with the agency.

A DOE spokesperson was unable to comment on the group's demands before this article's publication deadline.

Renovating the building will also cost money, and Dubnau said organizers hope to obtain low-interest loans from philanthropic groups or government grants to help fund the endeavor. Funding the project would make "all kinds of economic sense for the city," she argued, since the Queensboro People's Space would generate millions in economic output once businesses have moved in.

Besides describing the future building, the feasibility report also lists a few of the Long Island City organizations already displaced by rising rents and changing streetscapes, from the 5Pointz graffiti mecca to recently-displaced groups like The Secret Theatre and Rioult Dance Center.

"We will likely never know how many more Western Queens visual artists, dancers, and filmmakers would thrive artistically if they had access to 'rooms of their own,'" the report reads. "We would love to bring the 5 Pointz collective and the Secret Theater back to Long Island City, where they belong."

Read the full Queensboro People's Space report here, or visit the Western Queens Community Land Trust's website to learn more.