Project Components

Arverne East will be built in phases over ten years and will include:

Mix-Income Housing

The project will provide an enhanced economically and culturally diverse community by providing safe, high-quality rental and homeownership opportunities for all, ranging from the formerly homeless to low-, moderate-, middle-, and market-rate households.

• 1,650 units of housing

• Approximately 1,320 units affordable to formerly homeless, low, moderate, and middle-income households

• Affordable homeownership opportunities

• Approximately 330 market-rate units

• + One parking space for every unit of housing created 

Diverse Retail and Community Space

The project strives to address local retail needs and leverage project opportunities to support existing and new local businesses. The development will create spaces for a range of commercial options that promote year-round local businesses and jobs to serve local retail needs, as well as seasonal destination retail, further bolstering existing small business revenue generated by visitors. In addition, the project will support job training programs in construction, green infrastructure, agricultural, building maintenance, and culinary industries.  

• Approximately 180,000 square feet of commercial and office space

• Approximately 10,000 – 15,000 square foot brewery and tap house

• Approximately 60,000 square foot boutique hotel

• Approximately 22,000 square feet of community facility space

Accessible Recreation Space
and Wellness Programs

Project elements will promote movement and exercise through a safe, walkable, bike-friendly site design and active recreation spaces. In addition, healthy food will be made accessible to people of all incomes through site programming and community-based activities. 

• Increased access to Rockaway beaches

• Not-for-profit run urban farm

• Native plant nursery

• Outdoor destination recreation space that supports local jobs

• Publicly accessible open spaces to include greenways, pocket parks, and plazas

Project Timeline

Construction on the first phase of the project commenced in early 2021 with resilient and energy-efficient coastal development and includes:

A 35-acre Nature Preserve between Beach 44th Street and Beach 56th Place designed to restore and promote native ecology. 

With the help of a team of landscape designers, certified arborists, horticulturists, and ecologists, and working with the NYC Parks Department’s Natural Resources Group, Arverne East will transform 35 acres of neglected open space into a publicly accessible Nature Preserve. The design will enhance and protect fragile maritime ecology while enabling the public to enjoy plants and wildlife. Existing native trees were tagged and protected; they will anchor the new proposed plantings for this area. The pathways created throughout the Preserve are designed to minimize habitat disturbance. North and south paths will provide direct connections between the street and the Boardwalk.  The Nature Preserve opened to the public in July 2023.

 A community facility building with a welcome center, rest area, and adjacent urban farm.

The 5,000+ square foot Multi-Purpose Building will be located on the eastern side of Beach 44th Street across from the main entrance to the Nature Preserve. The building and accessory areas will be a resilient and sustainable practices model and will serve as a hub for community-based programming.

The building will rise on piles up to elevation +16 feet and be fossil fuel-free. A closed-loop geothermal system will provide building heating and cooling, electricity generating solar microgrid will generate enough power to completely power the building and supply additional energy from the neighborhood through the community solar program. The parking lot will be constructed with a permeable asphalt system and will use a system of bioswales to capture excess water to mitigate flooding. In addition, a parking lot with approximately 30 spaces will be situated adjacent to the building, along with bicycle racks to ease local transportation needs and public access.

The building will house a publicly accessible comfort station, administrative space for the New York City Parks Department for Nature Preserve operations, and classroom space for community partner, The Campaign Against Hunger (TCAH), to operate free public programs. The structure, large deck, and outdoor area surrounding the Multi-Purpose Building offer flexible space for programming, environmental education, and green jobs training for local youth and residents, including the development of a farm, compost exchange, native plant nursery, educational garden, and farmers market on a lot directly to the East. An online reservation system for the ocean-front community room is now open for for public use.

The Multi-Purpose Building opened to the public in Fall 2023.