Queens College Signs Dorn Deal

Queens College signs dorm deal

Queens College (QC) will become the third member of the City University of New York (CUNY) to offer on-campus dormitory housing under a deal signed with Capstone Development Corporation recently.

The residence hall, which Capstone will also manage, will have 506 beds, and occupy the land currently used for outdoor tennis courts, which will have to be relocated.

The project is being financed by $72 million in tax-exempt bonds issued by the New York City Housing Development Corporation, and supported by a Letter of Credit issued by RBS Citizens National Association. RBC Capital Markets is underwriting the bond issue.

According to QC, both the bonds and Letter of Credit are secured by project revenues only - no public funds are supporting the project, which is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2009.

To ease community concerns about an already-difficult parking situation, 200 hundred parking spaces will be created, 89 below and adjacent to the building and the remainder elsewhere on campus, according to QC.

So it is finally official, it's nice to see something finally put into the works after hearing and talking about it for a little over a year now. This will finally bring a social life to QC, one that the consensus agrees is lacking.

Dorms to Be Built In LIC?

Queens Crap:LIC to Become Dorm Town

A developer is looking to build a dormitory and mixed-use building that will bring some 200 CUNY students to Long Island City.

The initial proposal, which called for a 13-story residential building on Fifth St. with 169 apartments, ground-floor retail and 220 grad-student dormitory units, was unanimously rejected by Community Board 2's land use committee in November.

As a CUNY Student myself I am for this project because CUNY in particular lacks dorms. Dorms are first starting to appear at sites such as Queens College (Due out in 2010). From a Community stand point I can understand they there will be critics of this proposal, for the same or similar reasons that Jamaica Estates is against the St. John's dorms. This project benefits Astoria/ Long Island City, Queens and New York City as a whole, it makes more jobs available, student life easier and better education options for prospective out of state students.