An 18-acre waterfront property in Whitestone earmarked for the development of 52 single-family homes has been listed for sale by commercial realty company Cushman & Wakefield.
The property — located at 151-45 Sixth Road in Whitestone and known as Waterpointe — is currently owned by Edgestone Group, which paid $11.3 million for it in 2012. Cushman & Wakefield broker Stephen Preuss confirmed that the agency has been exclusively retained to arrange the sale, which is marketed to buyers looking to carry on Edgestone’s plan of building 52 homes and a waterfront park.
The property is listed to be sold “as-is.” Buyers would take up the burden of arranging for environmental cleanup of soil vapor which has been recorded to have elevated concentrations of aromatic and non-aromatic chemical compounds. Additionally, new owners would be tasked with mitigating any potential threat these vapors could pose to a residential community.
According to Preuss, the sellers did not name an asking price and are requesting proposals from potential buyers.
“Like any smart property owner, they’re seeing what the market has to yield currently,” Preuss said. “We’re in a very active market and there’s not a lot of large-scale, bulk land available in the boroughs.”
When contacted by The Courier, Waterpointe architect Joe Sultana disputed that the property was for sale and implied that he believed the listing to be unauthorized by the development team. Sultana said that to his knowledge the project was continuing as planned, with a meeting to discuss details of the development scheduled for September with members of Community Board 7.
Representatives of Edgestone Group LLC were outside of the United States when contacted by The Courier, and unable to be reached as of press time. Sultana was also unable to be reached to respond to statements made by Preuss.
Community Board 7 member Joe Sweeney said that he was troubled but not surprised by the conflicting accounts on the possible sale of the property.
“There’s no transparency even with the people that are working with them, this is obvious,” said Sweeney, a member of the zoning committee who has dealt closely with the project. “That’s what we’ve been battling with these people for years.”
The Waterpointe development has faced community opposition in the past due to proposed changes that would have seen 107 townhouses built on the space instead of the original 52 single-family homes. As most of the townhouses would have been two-family buildings, this would have resulted in a total of 203 units in the space, or around four times the original amount.
The changes were abandoned after an uproar from community board members and civic groups, and developers have since gone back to the original plan.
Sultana has said that the 52 single-family units would retail for about $2 million each. Forty of the homes will be between 2,000 to 3,000 square feet, and the remaining 12 will be bigger, more luxurious and situated closer to the waterfront.
