News
LONG ISLAND CITY MONOLITH
June 25, 2012
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| We snapped Rockrose founder Henry Elghanayan and son Justin(father and son all the way down to how they wear their shirts) the other day at the topping out of their Linc LIC luxury apartment building in the Court Square neighborhood. This was the 36th floor of the 42-story, 709-unit monolith. Justin tells us rental rates in the area are growing 8% year-over-year, so yeah, he's pumped about the Q2 2013 delivery. Plus, it's a long time coming since footings went down in July '08 before construction stopped. It started again this past September. Two more phases will follow with another 1,100 units. All together, it's a $700M project. Justin (newly promoted to prez) says he'd love to buy more parcels nearby, but now that Rockrose has come out of the ground, other buyers are competing. The submarket is about to reinvent itself, he says. |
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| Justin tells us there are plenty of comps for the bankers to do sound underwriting based on current rent rolls. When the company split in two (Justin's uncles formed TF Cornerstone and kept most of the LIC waterfront properties), Rockrose held on to the Court Square stuff and 47-05 Center Blvd on the waterfront. The key to Linc LIC is transportation access: The 7, N, R, E, M, and, yes, even the G all land nearby. With the Elghanayans above are Wells Fargo's William Iwasiw, Capital One's Benjamin Stacks, and Helaba's James Mirman. Rockrose put $117M in equity into this building, and Wells and German bank Helaba threw in debt. |
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| We snapped this shot on the way out. Building at this scale provides a developer the luxury of going bonkers with amenities, since they can be amortized over so many units, Justin says. That means a grocery store in the ground floor, a squash court (if anyone is brave enough, we challenge you to top our squeeze boast), a half b-ball court, three roof decks, and all those other "standard" luxury goodies. The grocery store, plus the M. Wells restaurant (on a 10-year lease) and the Rockrose Food Truck Lot, also benefit from Citi, JetBlue, Rolex, and NYC Department of Health employees nearby, plus the brand-new CUNY School of Law. |
