LIC development site under contract

Peter Papamichael’s Vorea Group is the buyer

Vorea's Peter Papamichael. (Google Maps, Vorea Group)Vorea's Peter Papamichael. (Google Maps, Vorea Group)
Vorea's Peter Papamichael. (Google Maps, Vorea Group)

Veteran developer Peter Papamichael’s Vorea Group is in contract to buy a Hunters Point development site near the waterfront.

The sales price is unclear, but records show Vorea put down a $2 million deposit for the western Queens lot at 2-33 50th Avenue. The seller is a self-storage company, the Fortress Corporation, which bought the site for an unknown sum in 1996 from Judson Realty. PincusCo first reported the contract.

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The property has a 95,750-square-foot warehouse but was marketed in mid-2019 as a residential development opportunity by a JLL team led by Bob Knakal. He declined to comment on the transaction or future of the site.

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Knakal and his team have been shopping the site’s 420,000 buildable square feet for apartments and 40,000 square feet that could be another use under the Hunters Point Subdistrict Rezoning.

Vorea has a track record redeveloping industrial properties in Brooklyn and Queens for a variety of uses. The developer did not respond to a request for comment.

The lot is in an Opportunity Zone, a federal designation to incentivize investment in downtrodden communities.

But not all Opportunity Zones are hurting. The median sales price for a condo in northwest Queens is $988,000 and the median rent is $2,400, according to Douglas Elliman’s most recent markets reports.