New 7 Story Mixed-Use Building To Go Up on 31st Street

Last month paperwork was filed for a new mixed-use building on that stretch of 31st Street between Astoria Blvd and 28th Ave. The address is 25-79 31st Street, and the 7 story, 22 unit building (with retail on the ground floor) will take the place of a two-story house at this address (and probably the lot next door), something that is not uncommon in Astoria.

In fact, the two houses—25-79 and 25-77 31st Street—had their demolition paperwork filed back in October 2016: “This is a full demolition of 2 story frame house filed with plans equipment used to remove foundation and grade the site.” George Michelis is listed as the owner for the demolition permits and is also the owner listed in the paperwork for this new building.

The building’s total square footage will be 21,630, with 16,972 sf for the residential part and 4,658 sf for the retail/commercial. It will have parking in the cellar—12 spaces, which is for more than half the number of units, which is a pretty good ratio; often the number of spaces is a small fraction of the number of accompanying units. That said, the location of this building is about equidistant from the Astoria Blvd (express) and 30th Avenue (local) N/W stops, so a car isn’t really necessary to get around town (YMMV). It has the risk of being noisy from the subway, too, so here’s hoping they have some good noise-reduction insulation planned.

DOB indicates that the plan exam was disapproved on May 2, but that doesn’t mean the development is kaput. It joins a changing section of Astoria—the 31st Street/28th Avenue corner development and the one at 25-34 31st Street, as well as the funeral home that was developed some time ago. I expect we’ll see more of these old two-story homes razed and their lots developed into mixed-use, multi unit buildings.