By Madina Toure
At the monthly Community Board 7 meeting at the Union Plaza Care Center, board members approved plans to build a hotel on the old Sears site in Flushing.
Out of 33 board members present at the Dec. 15 meeting, 24 voted in favor of the plan while nine voted against. All 14 members of the CB7’s Zoning Committee voted for the plan before the meeting.
“We’re not really granting something that’s going to tremendously change the impact of what could be built there other than the fact that it’s now more commercially driven than what was originally a residential building with some small retail on the bottom,” said Chuck Apelian, CB7’s first vice chairman and chairman of the Zoning Committee.
Century Development Group wants wants to build an 11-story mixed-use development consisting of a hotel, condos and community space at the old Sears site on 137-61 Northern Blvd., next to Flushing Town Hall. Raymond Chan Architect is the project’s architect.
“We are asking for specific permission to allow for a hotel to operate at the property with apartments upstairs,” said Eric Palatnik, the developers’ variance attorney.
The plans would change the property from an R6 zoning district, which allows for commercial units downstairs and residential upstairs, to a C43, which allows commercial spread throughout the building.
The building has 152,000 square feet of floor area and 155 parking spaces — about 28 parking spaces for residential units and 15 parking spaces for the hotel rooms.
The hotel will have 191 rooms, about 400 square feet in size, and take up floors three through eight. The top three floors will have 43 dwelling units. The condos will be anywhere from 800 square feet to 1,000 square feet for one to three people.
The second floor will have about 7,000 square feet of community facility space, which groups can use free of charge. Flushing Town Hall, which will be allowed to use the space due to an agreement with the developer, is considering using the space for artist residencies, though plans are not yet formalized.
The building targets the older population and people who are doing business in the area, and there are also plans bring in new cafés and shops as well as a water sculpture.
Republican politician Sunny Hahn criticized the plan and Flushing Town Hall’s management.
“We worked so hard to protect and restore Flushing Town Hall and now we’re ready to discard it?” Hahn said. “I’m very disappointed by the Flushing Town Hall’s current management. Joanne Jones’ lifetime’s work is about to be trashed before her body’s completely dissolved in her grave.”
Flushing resident Vincent Amato agreed, saying the area’s history would be threatened by the new building.
“I don’t want to offend the architects or the developers, but this thing looks like it’s out of ‘Miami Vice,’” Amato said. “Completely out of character with anything of historic nature, and it’s a slippery slope. You can kiss goodbye the sense of history we’ve had and enjoyed.”
Ellen Kodadek, Flushing Town Hall’s executive director, said the organization has no influence over whether a developer can pursue projects in the area and that the developer was receptive to the organization’s concerns.
“There was some concerns that we had initially in some of the exterior design of the building and I have to say that the devs listened to all of the concerns that we expressed and they made major amendments in the design to accommodate the concerns that they heard from us,” she said.
Apelian reiterated the board’s role in reclaiming Flushing Town Hall 25 years ago when it was in disrepair.
“I don’t think anybody on this board is negligent of the fact of the history of what takes place on Northern Boulevard and some of the historic monuments in the area, including Town Hall,” he said.
Dr. James Cervino, CB7’s environmental chairman, voted in favor of the plan but changed course after hearing Hahn and Amato’s presentations.
“The design is appalling,” Cervino said in an interview with TimesLedger. “I feel terrible. I should have said, ‘No.’”
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtoure@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4566.
