Buildings 1 and 2 at Willets Point Commons reached construction completion in May 2026 and residents began moving in. Together with Building 3, a 220-unit low-income senior building that broke ground the same month, Phase 1 delivers 1,100 units across about 1.1 million square feet, all of it affordable. NYCEDC calls it the largest 100 percent affordable development in New York City in more than 40 years.
Project Scope
The site is the old Iron Triangle, the auto-salvage district Fitzgerald called the valley of ashes. Making it buildable meant removing roughly 200,000 tons of contaminated soil and raising streets and building pads above the 100-year floodplain, on a parcel that runs hard against Flushing Creek.
Buildings 1 and 2 are twelve storeys and hold 880 units at 30 to 120 percent of area median income, financed with a $236.5 million construction loan and $123.5 million of LIHTC equity arranged by Wells Fargo. Building 3 carries about $211 million through a letter of credit and LIHTC via Goldman Sachs plus HDC and HPD subsidy. All of it is all-electric, using high-performance glazing, high-efficiency HVAC and an electric hot-water plant to meet Local Law 97, and targeting LEED Gold.
Buildings 1 and 2 topped out in May 2025, roughly a year ahead of the original schedule.
Why It Matters
The unit set-asides are unusually specific: 20 percent for Queens Community Board 7 residents, 10 percent for veterans and city employees, plus dedicated mobility, visual and hearing accessibility units and units for formerly homeless households. That kind of preference structure adds real complexity to lease-up and to the compliance monitoring a developer signs up for.
The wider Willets Point programme, which we list separately, adds a 650-seat public school, more than 150,000 square feet of open space, a 250-room hotel and the 25,000-seat Etihad Park. Note that no general contractor is publicly named for the Phase 1 residential buildings, so that field is left blank here rather than guessed.
Project Team & Details
| Developer | Queens Development Group (Related Companies and Sterling Equities) |
|---|
| Owner / Client | New York City Economic Development Corporation, with NYC HPD and NYC HDC |
|---|
| Architect | S9Architecture |
|---|
| Consultants | Related Management Company (Property Management)
Wells Fargo Community Lending and Investment (Buildings 1 and 2 Financing)
Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group (Building 3 Financing) |
|---|
| Status | Under Construction |
|---|
| Delivery Method | Public-Private Partnership (P3) |
|---|
| Sustainability Certification | LEED Gold |
|---|
| Funding Source | Public-Private Partnership (P3) |
|---|
