By Alex Christodoulides
A Briarwood building on Hoover Avenue may soon have a neighbor after part of the lot on which it sits was sold last week to a Long Island developer.
Massey Knackal Realty announced the sale last week of a portion of the lot at 143-50 Hoover Ave. — already home to a 100-unit residential building named the Betsy Ross — in an all-cash transaction valued at $2.8 million.
The roughly 107-foot-by-100-foot property is located on the south side of Hoover Avenue between Daniels and Smedley streets and is to be carved out of a much larger lot that is to be subdivided, Massey Knackal said.
The 10,765-square-foot lot is to contain about 32,295 buildable square feet, the real estate firm said. The property is zoned R6A, which caps building height at 70 feet high, according to city records. The Betsy Ross building, which is now the only structure on the 68,000-square-foot lot, is seven stories high, so any new construction would have to be a comparable or lower height.
Massey Knackal said the property sold for $86.70 per buildable foot to a Long Island developer, but did not name the buyer.
The city Finance Department lists the market value of the Betsy Ross building at about $5.1 million, so for a small portion of that lot to sell for almost half as much seems a vote of confidence in the worth of Queens real estate.
"This prime Queens location poses an incredible opportunity for residential development, even in today's real estate market," said Massey Knackal partner and Managing Director Tom Donovan, who represented the seller with broker Brian Sarath.
Reach reporter Alex Christodoulides by e-mail at achristodoulides@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
