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LIC's Real Estate Scene vs. Williamsburg's: How Do They Stack Up?

By Jeanmarie Evelly | April 24, 2015 8:30am | Updated on April 24, 2015 5:05pm
 The Pepsi-Cola sign in Long Island City.
The Pepsi-Cola sign in Long Island City.
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DNAinfo/Jeanmarie Evelly

LONG ISLAND CITY — The neighborhood's real estate market is hot, but how does it compare to its hip neighbor to the south?

At a real estate breakfast on Wednesday, a panel of industry experts discussed the current and future state of housing in Long Island City — and part of the discussion inevitably turned to how it compares to another of the city's "it" neighborhoods, Williamsburg.

"I love Williamsburg, it's great. We have projects there, they've done incredibly well, it's hip, it's interesting," said David Dishy of L&M Development Partners, one of the four panelists to speak at the Long Island City Partnership's annual event.

"But it's not nearly as interesting in many ways as Long Island City, and I think that’s because of the opportunities for the mix of uses," he continued, pointing to the neighborhood's blend of residential, office space and longtime commercial tenants like Silvercup Studios. "That's a special mix."

Another perk of Long Island City, the experts said, is its easy transportation access, particularly in neighborhoods like Court Square and Queens Plaza, which have seven train lines between them.

"You can literally hop out of the building and you’ve got multiple subway lines that you can get on and get into the city literally within minutes," said Matthew Baron, president of Simon Baron Development, which built the Crescent Club rental building near Queensboro Plaza, and is planning another 500 units at 2940 Northern Boulevard.

He compared getting on the L train in Williamsburg during the morning rush to the sardine-like public transit in Japan, where workers help pack commuters into the train.

"Even though Queens Plaza is not nearly as sexy as Williamsburg, I think the transportation blows it absolutely out of the water," he said.

Seble Tareke Williams of Emmes Asset Management Company, which owns the property where the Studio Square beer garden is located and is converting its upper levels to office space, said Brooklyn's experience may have helped pave the way for Queens to have its moment.

"I think that what’s happened in Brooklyn has made the outer boroughs not just acceptable, but dare I say respectable," she said, saying a decade ago her friends were reluctant to visit her Brooklyn home but are now eager to name-drop restaurants in the neighborhood.

"I think that’s going to happen in Queens faster than you know it," she said.

But "we're still at the frontier," she cautioned, while other panelists described Long Island City as still in its "neighborhood-building mode."

The speakers said one way Williamsburg outpaces the neighborhood is in its depth of retail options and other amenities, where parts of Long Island City, like Queens Plaza and Court Square, have yet to catch up.

"I think there are still a lot of retailers who are like, Long Island City, where the hell is that?" said Baron.

Elizabeth Lusskin, the president of LIC Partnership, said comparing the two neighborhoods is the wrong approach because they're just too different.

"I think that obviously people are going to bring it up, in the sense of there was an explosion of activity in Williamsburg and now there's an explosion of activity in Long Island City, and they're both in outer boroughs," she said. "But that being said, they're actually very different."

One difference is the large size of Long Island City — about five and a half square miles, she said — which is what lends the neighborhood it's largely mixed character, with residential, commercial and industrial zones.

"I think Williamsburg is a phenomenal thing in its own right," she said. "And Long Island City is a phenomenal neighborhood in its own right."