Building New York City real estate is never easy. But some projects are more difficult than others.
After years of hurdles, a 144-unit affordable and senior housing project in Forest Hills, Queens, has secured financing and is set to break ground. TD Bank loaned $37.5 million for construction, while Community Preservation Corp is providing a $40 million long-term loan. On the public side, the city is providing $71 million from a program for senior housing.
“As an affordable housing developer, I’ve never seen anything as difficult as this,” said Jeff Fox, of Foxy Development, which is co-developing the project. “Nothing about this was easy.”
From conception to construction, the project changed plans several times. The property at 70-35 113th Street, dubbed The Perennial, is the site of an abandoned hospital. It was upzoned in 2020 with an agreement that it would include a certain amount of senior affordable housing.
Typically, developers in these upzoned areas build their affordable and market-rate apartments in one building, with the market-rate units subsidizing the affordable units. But because of a complex ownership structure, the two portions of the project were kept separate, allowing Fox’s team to pursue public financing for a fully affordable development while a market-rate development next door can still take advantage of the upzoning.
At one point, the Perennial was envisioned as a fully senior housing development, financed by tax-exempt state bonds, according to Fox. But that plan fell through, and the team scrapped their designs for 20 non-senior affordable units. The city provided funds, pledging money from its Senior Affordable Rental Apartments program.
The backstory of the financing lines up with promises of increased public-private partnerships touted by Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor. Mamdani has proposed tripling the city’s production of publicly subsidized, permanently affordable housing. Fox said there were many times the Department of Housing Preservation and Development could have walked away from the deal, but officials wanted to make something happen despite setbacks and an out-of-the-box structure.
“This is a part of Queens where we have long wanted to build more affordable housing,” said Ahmed Tigani, acting commissioner of HPD. “We’re going to need every part of the city to help build housing for the people who need it.”
The plan is now to redevelop the interior of the hospital building while adding two stories on top. A section of the building will be carved out as the future home of the Forest Hills Jewish Center. The units will be available to households earning up to 50 percent of the area median income. HPD is also providing a rental subsidy through federal Section 8 funds. Of the 124 senior units, 20 will be set aside for formerly homeless seniors.
Services for seniors will be provided by co-developer Selfhelp Realty Group, which focuses on senior housing. The Forest Hills site will be the company’s first intergenerational property.
“It was a great opportunity to start to look at something that we see as a priority for the city, moving more toward intergenerational housing,” said Lisa Trub, executive director of Selfhelp. “We do think that we can kind of replicate a similar model and not be totally reliant on HPD financing.”
The market rate development next door, which is owned separately and which the Fox and Selfhelp teams are not involved with, will be 13 stories and 241 units. TopRock Capital and RJ Holdings secured $125 million last year to build condos on the site.
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