QUEENS — A Long Island-based developer wants to build a residential tower where a notorious strip club once stood in Rego Park.
The 15-story building is planned for 92-77 Queens Boulevard, where Goldfingers — a strip club that closed in 1999 after numerous complaints from residents and elected officials — was located.
Atlas Projects Inc. paid about $40 million for a 98-year lease to develop the site near the Long Island Expressway, said Christopher Okada, president of Okada & Co., who represents the developer.
The vacant building that once housed the strip club will be soon demolished, along with an adjacent car wash that recently closed, Okada said.
The new building will be located only two blocks away from Rego Park Center, where another developer, Vornado Realty Trust, is planning to build a 24-story residential building atop the shopping mall.
Okada said the deal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is yet another sign that Central Queens is a growing in popularity with developers.
"There are so many big deals that are happening in Rego Park and Forest Hills,” Okada said, citing as an example the $20.5 milion purchase in September of the Midway Theatre in Forest Hills by a group of investors.
The details about the new building are still being worked out, but Okada said the 105,000 square-foot structure could include about 100 apartments and up to two stories of retail space.
Local residents had mixed reactions to the planned development.
"There is some sense that we do need a new building in the neighborhood, but how are you going to manage all that traffic,” said Peter Beadle, 42, a Rego Park resident and a member of Transportation Alternatives Queens Activist Committee.
Beadle said that with two large residential towers coming to the area, and “no changes being made to the transportation infrastructure around us,” the neighborhood will become even more congested.
Frank Gulluscio, district manager of Community Board 6, shared Beadle’s concerns.
“Our infrastructure right now is already stressed and our schools are stressed,” Gulluscio said.
But on the other hand, Gulluscio said, the project may also bring economic benefits to the area. “Anything is better than an empty building,” he said.
