Sunday Summary: Reaching for Glory in Queens

New York Mets fans — famously exhilarated and subsequently disappointed by their franchise — got a double dose this week.

Pete Alonso broke the team’s home run record last Tuesday night. With his 253rd dinger during a wild 13-5 victory against the Braves, he eclipsed Darryl Strawberry’s 252 set in 1990. (Alonso subsequently bagged No. 254 in the same game!)

Of course, the Mets reverted to form the next night, losing to Atlanta 11-6, and again on Thursday 4-3. (The Mets were ahead in both games — on Wednesday by six runs! We had to calm ourselves down at multiple intervals.)

Mets owner Steve Cohen no doubt shares our joy and murderous rage.

And real estate people should care about the Mets and Cohen, because they serve as the linchpin for one of the most ambitious real estate projects in the five boroughs: Metropolitan Park.

The $8 billion project next to Citi Field — which is banking on obtaining one of the three downstate casino licenses — would include 450 units of affordable housing, a new mass transit station and 25 acres of green space.

All of this has made Cohen a player in Queens real estate. And one of the reasons we think he has good odds of success has been his proposal’s lineup of allies.

“I was part of the Amazon process years ago and that was a top-down approach,” said Queens Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Grech. “This approach has been completely opposite as it has been ground up with thousands of meetings with tens of hundreds of people engaged.”

Of course, Cohen is not the only person making sweeping proposals in the borough. Last week, Chris Jiashu Xu, the president of United Construction & Development, filed plans for a 22- and a 28-story residential project at 61-06 Junction Boulevard in Rego Park, which would bring another 630 units of housing, 70,468 square feet of commercial space and 113,636 square feet of community space into the borough. A couple of days later, the same developer disclosed plans for a 387-unit, 268,000-square-foot luxury residential building in Long Island City.

And there’s more to come in Queens: On Wednesday, the New York City Planning Commission approved Mayor Eric Adams’s Jamaica Neighborhood Plan, which would rezone a head-spinning 230 blocks with the potential for more than 12,000 new units (4,000 of which would be affordable).

“For decades, Jamaica’s zoning has curtailed new housing and limited new businesses,” the mayor said in a statement lauding the approval. “It’s made it harder for working-class families to work and stay in the area. But our Jamaica Neighborhood Plan will help change that. … With this ambitious vision, we’ll bring thousands of new homes and jobs to Jamaica and make sure that working-class families can live in the city they love.” (Oh, and speaking of Queens real estate, check out our profile of Adam Joly, the co-founder of Igloo, which focuses on Long Island City.)

A run for homes

One thing to note about all the projects mentioned above: They’re all multifamily deals. (Or deals with a heavy residential component.) Yes, multifamily is a hot topic — and not just in Queens.

Adam Neumann wants in on Miami residential. His company Flow — along with Canada Global and Yellowstone Trust — bought a $525 million stake in the Chetrit Group’s big residential project, Flow on the River, fittingly on the Miami River.

In Wynwood, Bank OZK loaned Jenny Bernell’s Clearline Real Estate $65.3 million in construction financing to finish 2000 Wynwood, a 12-story, 310-unit apartment complex.

And the Mandarin Oriental in Brickell Key is being torn down to make way for Swire Properties’ The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Miami, which will consist of two towers, one of which will have 228 condos (and which Swire claims has already generated $1 billion in pre-sales) and the other of which will consist of a hotel with a condo component.

In Southern California’s Rancho Mirage (in Coachella Valley), InterVest Capital Partners and Builders Capital shelled out $160 million in financing for Cotino, a community anticipating not only 1,900 houses and condos but also a 24-acre lagoon and  private club that — best of all — will be “managed by Disney cast members.”

Also in SoCal, Advanced Real Estate secured $109 million to refinance a portfolio of three apartment communities constituting some 428 units in Anaheim and Azusa.

In the Washington, D.C., area, Madison International Realty and The Accend Companies scored $59 million in refinancing from Fortress Investment Group for their 287-unit Ellipse Urban Apartments in the Chesapeake Bay region of Virginia. (Just be sure to pay Fortress back, Madison.)

Oh, and did we mention that Gary Barnett’s Extell Development filed plans to demolish two buildings at 141 Columbus Avenue and 155 Columbus Avenue that were part of the ABC campus he purchased in 2022? Extell plans to build …  you guessed it … residential in their place.

With all this housing on the way, it’s at least good for individual buyers that mortgage rates have come down to their lowest levels all year.

The Mets are not the only entity causing palpitations

Well, we did not exactly get good news on Aug. 14 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that wholesale prices had jumped 0.9 percent in July — the biggest rise in three years. And, according to a report earlier in the week, consumer prices rose 2.7 percent. (Slightly better than some economists had predicted, but still.)

In general there has been a certain amount of tsuris in the real estate sector, primarily driven by tariff anxiety and the persistence of high interest rates.

Financial consultancy SitusAMC found that investor recommendations to buy commercial real estate assets dropped, as per the company’s recent report.

“Everyone who’s involved in commercial real estate came into 2025 with this view that it was going to be a more active year since interest rates looked like they were going to be on a downward trajectory, or at least stable-to-downward trajectory,” said Peter Muoio, head of SitusAMC Insights. “All of the uncertainty that’s been unleashed has taken that initial optimism for more activity, and we’re now halfway through the year and we’re still sort of in interest rate purgatory.”

Likewise, real estate management platform Agora released a survey of 200 real estate executives and investors last week that found that 44 percent were pausing or reducing acquisitions, thanks to market volatility.

Serenity now

Even more than a mantra of dubious impact, one of the things that can really calm down an edgy real estate investor-cum-Mets fan is art. And it’s big business in real estate.

“Art is definitely proven to accelerate the leasing process,” said Madeline Durso, an art curator and adviser with TurningArt.

More than just a nice-to-have, it has assumed more importance — including in some of Gotham’s newest office towers.

“Tenants [have] high expectations for the buildings they’ll be working in,” Durso said. “They are part of this generation of people expecting amenities and also part of companies that need to attract this new generation of people. So they’re usually looking for pieces that are sophisticated, elevate the space, but are also fresh, energizing, creative and not something that you feel like you could get anywhere else.”

CO took a look at some of the buildings that are best exemplifying this.

Until next week, serenity now . . . serenity now . . . serenity now.