The Feil Organization has inked a 233,000 s/f lease renewal and expansion with the New York City Department of Design and Construction at Queens Atrium, 30-30 Thomson Avenue in Long Island City, NY.
The 15-year agreement, signed by the City of New York Department of Citywide Administrative Services on behalf of the Department of Design and Construction (DDC), is a renewal of the department’s existing approximate 210,000 s/f space plus an expansion of 23,000 s/f for a total of 233,000 s/f .
The DDC will remain in what is an up-and-coming area of the city, said Randall Briskin, Feil’s vice president of leasing, who represented the landlord, a group led by The Feil Organization.
The DDC is the City’s primary capital construction project manager and provides communities with new or renovated structures such as firehouses, libraries, police precincts, courthouses and senior centers, as well as roadway, sewer and water main construction projects in all five boroughs. The department will occupy multiple floors of the six-level facility.
A former industrial building that dates back to the first quarter of the century, Queens Atrium has been artfully redeveloped into modern showroom, office and conference space. The building is ideally located in the heart of Long Island City, minutes from Long Island and midtown Manhattan in an emerging residential and commercial section of Queens.
“The area is rapidly changing with residential construction. Long Island City is slated to see the construction of over 8,000 units of residential housing, as well as a flurry of new stores and restaurants,” Briskin said. “Additionally, there has been a migration of ‘back office users’ looking to mitigate the rising occupancy costs of Manhattan.”
Formerly occupied by The American Chiclet Company, Queens Atrium was master planned by Ieoh Ming (I. M.) Pei, the world-renowned modernist architect.
Queens Atrium features a restaurant, conference facilities, concierge desk, and lobby security cameras. It is one of the few buildings in the city with its own bus service operating continuously throughout the day to local transportation hubs, including the 7, E, F, G, N and R subway lines, three bus routes and the Long Island Railroad Hunters Point station.
The tenant was represented by Rachna Desi-Jain, Doug Holowink, Michael Lee, John Morrill, John Reinertsen, Keith Thompson and Sean Wilson of CBRE.
“Dealing with the unique demands of a governmental agency can always be challenging,” Briskin says. “This deal was long and arduous, but all parties rose to the occasion in the spirit of insuring that our existing relationship as landlord to the agency could be continued for the next 15 years.”
