Besen N.O.I. — Neighborhood Of Interest: Flushing, Queens

Flushing is home to New York City’s fourth-largest Central Business District, and the widespread recognition and market activity commensurate with this designation are finally catching up as the city’s residents and corporate tenants seek lower-rent areas with great accessibility. Flushing is one of the city’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods, with Chinese, Indian, Korean and other Asian residents comprising almost 70% of the population.

We caught up with Besen Group Executive Managing Director Greg Corbin, head of The Corbin Group, to learn more about the area’s draw and its recent high-profile transactions.

The confluence of a few trends is driving CRE deals and investor interest in Flushing, Corbin said. Investors around the world have long considered it a relatively low-risk haven for capital, and demand is increasing. Local buyers are shying away from the uppermost echelon of luxury multifamily properties and are instead approaching lending institutions to find financing for value-add and non-core opportunities.

Chinese buyers invested a record $33B in real estate worldwide last year, and almost half was funneled into New York. Flushing, the “Chinatown of Queens," has started to attract particular interest, causing average home prices to increase over 50% in five years and multifamily price-per-SF to increase 39% since 2011. It has a limited multifamily stock, which developers are hoping to augment with some community-oriented, high-end new construction.

“It is the epicenter of Asian immigration in the borough,” Corbin said.

Corbin believes Flushing’s recent growth was enabled by its position at a few major public transit intersections. Getting around is easy with the subway, LIRR, numerous MTA bus lines, access to the Whitestone Expressway (I-678) and the Long Island Expressway (I-495), and its proximity to both major NYC airports.

It also contains Citi Field, the USTA tennis center, Queens Zoo, Memorial Field of Flushing, New York Hall of Science, Queens Botanical Garden, Flushing Commons and New World Mall. The neighborhood also has some impressive mixed-use projects in its pipeline.

“The $1B Flushing Commons is a complex that F&T Group is working on with AECOM Capital and Rockefeller Development that’s slated to bring more than 600 condos across five buildings to the neighborhood by 2021, as well as over 500K SF of retail, office and community facility space,” Corbin said.

He also told us about a 9K SF development site that traded for $13M, setting a record for Flushing and demonstrating that commercial projects in the area are outpacing other sections of the city. In January, a six-story elevator building with 81 residential units at 136-04 Cherry Ave. sold for $26M, or $303/SF.

Corbin is taking advantage of this surge in activity to spearhead Besen’s marketing efforts for its 53K SF, 11-story, mixed-use elevator building at 142-28 38th Ave. The bankruptcy auction offering comprises 23 vacant units in 32K SF of residential, 11K SF of ground-floor retail boasting 22-foot ceilings, 9,500 SF of community space and a rare 30 parking spaces.

The Corbin Group is also selling the six-story, 10K SF multifamily property at 43-24 Robinson St. in Flushing.

“It was built in 2006, has 421-a tax exemption with seven years remaining and has low maintenance costs,” Besen Group associate Leah Chen said. “Near Kissena Park and Queens Botanical Garden, it’s a prime potential condo conversion project.”

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