By Zach Patberg
According to Forest Hill's Community Board 6, there is a real need for housing.The Windsor, rising 22 stories at 71st Road and Queens Boulevard, should be completed and ready for occupants by Sept. 1, Panico said. The 17th floor was poured Monday. Years ago the Windsor property, owned by Cord Meyer for 40 years, was originally a parking lot slated for office space. Plans changed, however, after Forest Hills residents indicated at community meetings that rather than offices for transitory businessmen, they wanted spacious housing in which families could settle down. “Those kinds of people take root in the community,” Community Board 6 District Manager Kathleen Histon said. CB 6 covers the Forest Hills.Cord Meyer complied. Chief Financial Officer Anthony Colletti said they went back to the drawing board, designing mostly two- to three-bedroom condos encased in glass that give its residents panoramic views of two Queens parks and the Manhattan skyline.”Why battle (the community) when you can look into residential options and see if they can work?” Colletti said.For between $710,000 and $1.5 million, tenants will get windowed walls, hardwood floors, high-speed Internet and satellite options, with access to a gym, social lounge, catering and landscaped roof-deck.On the first level, 8,000 square feet of commercial and 1,000 square feet of community space is reserved. A multilevel parking garage accommodates below.”I don't think in New York City you can expect much better,” Histon said.Before The Windsor, the last large complex in Forest Hills was the Pinnacle, built in the late '80s at 75th Avenue and Queens Boulevard, Colletti said. For Cord Meyer, The Windsor marks its first return to residential development since 1983, when it built New Jersey's Oakland Towers.Fittingly, the executives said, the residential project belongs in Forest Hills where Cord Meyer has been based for more than a century.Reach reporter Zach Patberg by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
