According to Weissman, River East is getting 200 to 250 calls a day from interested buyers—and excavation hasn’t even begun on the buildings. “It’s insane,” he admitted.

It isn’t unheard of for real estate developers to create their own buzz. For an area like Long Island City, which has been on the verge of massive development for as long as anyone can remember, developers aren’t the only ones anxious to give it that final push.

The River East complex will include two 30-story glass towers and four 8-story buildings that will be located on 44th Avenue between Vernon Boulevard and the waterfront. In addition, a public park will be landscaped along the waterfront, paid for by the developer, but open to the public.

“This development is long overdue,” said George Stamatiades, a member of the Dutch Kills Civic Association, which is on the north side of the Queensborough Bridge. “We’re just too strategically located to have been skipped over for so long.”

Weissman agreed, noting that the development will be especially attractive to Manhattanites who have been priced out of that borough’s real estate market.

“This is a new vision for Long Island City,” said the project’s architect Jay Valgora, principal of V Studios. He said that as an architect, designing the soaring towers was a thrill, but he is most proud of the waterfront park and playground. The development is situated just north of the Queens West development project.

“We lobbied very hard for the esplanade space,” said Joseph Conley, chairman of Community Board 2. The neighborhood has been working with the Department of City Planning since 1992 to develop the area with a waterfront park reaching all the way to Astoria.

The agency and the site’s previous owners, the East River Tennis Club, agreed on ground rules for the site, including the amount of public space and height restrictions on the structures, before the property was sold to developers.

Terri Adams, president of the Hunters Point Community Development organization said she too welcomed the development, but had reservations about the height and rather large bulk that seem to be standard for the latest string of Long Island City developments.

Silvercup Studios, located just east of River East, has restarted its own plans to develop a mixed-use development in its industrial environs. Relative to the six-acre Silvercup expansion project and Queens West, “this is the most delicately scaled,” Valgora said. The two tall towers will be situated on the waterfront so as not to impose on the rest of the neighborhood. The smaller buildings, which will house townhouses and lofts, will even have their own modern version of stoops.

Valgora said that it makes sense to have large-scale developments on the waterfront because there is a big demand for the accompanying views. Included in the design is 20,000 square feet of retail space, which will be given over to necessities for occupants of the building, like a pharmacy and dry cleaner.

Residents will also have access to an indoor and outdoor pool, a gym and two floors of below-ground parking. The signature design element in all the structures is the glass exterior, which appears frequently in Valgora’s work.

He has recently been involved in the RKO Keith’s Theatre site in Flushing, which also makes extensive use of glass exteriors. It was recently rejected for a variance by the community board, but Valgora and community members are hopeful that an agreement on a smaller building will be reached within the next month.

River East, on the other hand, will be built entirely as of right, meaning the plans are all within current zoning restrictions. Excavation will begin in the coming weeks and the foundation will be laid in June.

“It’s very important that this raises the bar on design,” Valgora said. “Long Island City is one of the most special neighborhoods in New York.” Now will the rest of the city agree?