Plaza College Expands to 80K SF at Forest Hills Tower

For-profit Plaza College has renewed its lease for the first three floors at Forest Hills Tower at 118-35 Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills, Queens, in addition to taking the sixth floor for a total occupation of 80,000 square feet, Commercial Observer has learned.

Roy Chipkin from CBRE represented Plaza College. The building’s owner, Muss Development, handled the lease in-house. The asking rent in the building is in the low $50s per square foot.

Muss announced that the renewal and expansion brings the 375,000-square-foot, 17-story building — the “largest, most accessible Class A office building in Queens,” according to Muss — to 99 percent occupancy.

Plaza originally signed on for the lower three floors in 2013, creating what the developer calls a “building-within-a-building” campus. The facility hopes to begin using the 21,068-square-foot sixth floor once its build-out is complete in the first quarter of 2026.

Prior to Plaza’s lease, the building was a regional headquarters for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which used it as a response center for Superstorm Sandy.

“We’re proud to expand and extend our relationship with Plaza College as they continue to grow and thrive in Forest Hills Tower,” Muss Development President Jason Muss said in a statement. “Their new, long-term commitment underscores the extensive work we’ve put into the property to make it accessible and dynamic for a diversity of tenants.”

Plaza is a private college with schools dedicated to business, court reporting, dental sciences, health and nursing. The expansion will be home to the latter two.

“This expansion will accommodate new and exciting programs in the college’s growing School of Graduate Studies focusing on critical healthcare providers and advanced nursing,” Charles E. Callahan IV, provost of Plaza College, said in a statement. “We are increasing our presence by over 20,000 square feet to support state-of-the-art learning environments, healthcare simulation labs, and dedicated facilities for our growing cohort of master’s students.”

Other tenants in the building include the law office of Isaac Abraham; the offices of Pasternack, Tilker, Ziegler, Walsh, Stanton & Romano LLP; Schweiger Dermatology Group; and the offices of Muss Development.

Larry Getlen can be reached at lgetlen@commercialobserver.com.