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Woodside: An up and coming neighborhood (op-ed)

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Photo: Wikipedia commons/Peter Greenberg

Woodside has many good things going for it. Over the last few years, it has travelled miles from an underdeveloped community to a highly established and commercialized neighborhood. It continues to grow as an attractive place to live.

In fact, In January 2016, Business Insider ranked Woodside as No. 5 of The 10 Hottest New York City neighborhoods just trailing two steps behind Midwood in Brooklyn, Woodside has grown by 13.7 percent in population for the past three years!!

It has spent most of its history in relative obscurity being viewed as another middle class Queens neighborhood. However, in the past five years that stigma is slowly fading.

Today, Woodside is better known as being vibrant, bustling, upbeat demand and highly sought-after area. There has been an influx of young professionals along with its diversity of culture.

It’s not most surprising that over 60 units of new apartment building were sold out in a span of just six weeks. Woodside, without a doubt, is a strong residential market and low vacancies. Because of this, demand to build new apartments are increasing which excites developers.

As of this writing, there are eight sites being developed for residential/mixed-use and two more that haven’t broken ground on Queens Boulevard. This only demonstrates the viability of the community.

It is also commuter friendly. It is served by the 7 <7> train, both express and local, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) on 61st Street and the Q70 Shuttle Bus Service to La Guardia Airport. While transportation by car is provided by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Long Island Expressway.

While historically, Woodside’s inhabitants were mostly Native Americans. At the turn of the 21st century, Asian Americans migrated to the neighborhood that attracted more immigrants therefore introducing a more diverse community and choices of restaurants.

Now, Woodside has a population of 29 percent Asian, 38 percent Hispanic and 33 percent White.

Woodside is on its way to be one of the hottest and best neighborhoods in Queens. It is fair to say that the potential for growth is apparent to all.

Swain Weiner is president, partner and founder of Greiner Maltz Investment Properties, which specializes in all types of commercial investment sales throughout the five boroughs and Long Island. Over the last several years, he has sold more than $600,000,000 in aggregate sales with more than 2,200 residential units. The views expressed are not necessarily those of QNS or its staff.