The controversial 5 Pointz-replacing pair of luxury rental towers in Long Island City are well on their respective paths toward completion. When we last checked in back in January the two buildings in had several stories under its belt and was well on their way toward reaching their 48-story tall and 41-story heights by their anticipated end-of-year deadline.
Details on what the project would offer, in terms of number of apartments and its plans for commercial space have been around for a while but up until now, renderings of what the space will actually look like had remained to be seen.
GM Realty development has tapped design firm Mojo Stumer Associates to execute the interiors and public spaces for the massive 1,115-apartment project. The designs do its best to sustain the legacy of 5 Pointz’s past as a graffiti mecca by incorporating artwork into its common spaces, but ultimately it comes across as yet another high-end residential development playing into the growing trend of merging street art with luxury living.
The lobby is comprised of an “engraved graffiti logo” in the reception area along with soaring ceilings and a few walls adorned with artwork. The towers will offer a gallery with 14-foot ceilings, large columns, a floor-to-ceiling windows that welcome in plenty of natural light, and more graffiti, of course.
Plans also call for nearly 40,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground and cellar floors along with 20 artists’ studios.
The amenity package that residents will be privy to isn’t bad with a lounge, fitness center, and indoor swimming pool. Rent prices haven’t been revealed just yet but there will be 223 affordable units split between the two buildings.
The development project has drawn heavy criticism from the very beginning, when it was announced that the “U.N. of graffiti” would be wiped out. Not much has changed since then and protests along with local opposition continue to ensue. Last month, a judge allowed a lawsuit presented in 2015 by nine artists against site owner Jerry Wolkoff to move forward. The suit argues that Wolkoff and GM Realty removed murals painted by the artists, when they whitewashed the site overnight, “without giving [the artists] a fair opportunity to remove and preserve their work, or even the minimum notice required by law.”
