The Condo Boom Has Hit Long Island City

The looming arrival of Amazon’s headquarters in Long Island City has already sparked a frenzy in the Queens neighborhood’s condo market, with prospective buyers scrambling to snag a piece of it. “We’re on the map like we’ve never been before,” Halstead broker Jonna Stark  tells the New York Post. “The world knows about [LIC] now, not just New Yorkers.” 

Though the East River-front campus at Anable Basin won’t be completed until 2022, the e-commerce giant will lease 1 million square feet at One Court Square, also known as the Citigroup Building, in the interim. That choice is already moving area real-estate markets. 

The Amazon effect has also broken local price records. A two-bedroom, 1,443-square-foot condo at 46-30 Center Boulevard entered contract in the days after Amazon’s announcement for more than the $2.99 million ask. That works out to at least $2,077 per square foot, which Bloomberg reported marks a neighborhood record. 

The home listing agency Compass’ Silvette Julian, says Amazon certainly helped make this contract price possible. “Everyone sees the potential of this neighborhood,” she says. “It will only get better.” 

It’s a mantra that’s quickly spreading, and that’s why prospective buyers – a mix of city locals, suburb dwellers and people from as far as California and China – are cramming into new developments for open houses and tours. 

Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac College poll reveals that a majority of New Yorkers – 57 percent – welcome Amazon’s arrival and the 25,000 jobs it will bring to the city. The poll also reveals that blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to approve than whites, and there’s a similar difference of opinion over the $3 billion in tax breaks and incentives Amazon will receive, which won the approval of 52 percent of blacks, 56 percent of Hispanics, but just 40 percent of whites.