Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday an ambitious plan to battle NYC’s housing crisis in an exclusive to amNewYork: the construction of 3,000 new residential units on the undeveloped land of the former Flushing Airport in Queens.
The proposal is part of the mayor’s ongoing push to create affordable and market-rate housing throughout the city. Although it is still in its planning phase, the Flushing Airport site, which has largely been reclaimed by wetlands, calls for units that range from “deeply affordable” to market-rate.
City hall officials said the site’s units are expected to be housing for middle-income New Yorkers. Owned by the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC), the College Point space operated as an airport from 1929 to 1984. The development will save 60 acres of open space to create “park-like” landscaping and sustainable design, city officials said.
“For too many decades, this valuable land has sat vacant, but our administration said it was time to change that,” the mayor explained. “We issued a landmark executive order to build housing on city-owned sites like this one, and now we are excited to announce we will create around 3,000 new homes at the site of the former Flushing Airport.”
The NYC EDC issued a request for proposals last year to develop the site. The winning proposal came from NYC-based firms Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR Incorporated. According to city officials, the bold plan will generate $3.2 billion in economic activity over the next 30 years, creating over 1,300 construction jobs and 530 permanent jobs.
‘Preserving the wetlands’
EDC CEO Andrew Kimball said the wetlands at Flushing Airport — a natural way to minimize flooding and provide habitat for diverse species in a given area — will stay.
“The redevelopment of the former Flushing Airport is finally ready for take-off, and we are thrilled to work with Cirrus and LCOR to transform this long-vacant site into a mixed-use project that will deliver thousands of workforce housing units, new public green space, and other community amenities, all while protecting and preserving the wetlands,” he said.
The Flushing Airport idea follows the mayor’s controversial City of Yes plan, which was passed on Dec. 18, 2024 and reforms zoning regulations throughout the city so more housing can be built. Opponents of the City of Yes plan have expressed concern about whether the city’s infrastructure can keep up with such a rapid surge in housing.
“Whether it’s building record amounts of affordable housing two years in a row, passing the first citywide zoning reform in six decades, or transforming old offices, garages, and airfields into new homes, we are proud to be the most pro housing administration in city history, and by using every tool at every level of government to build housing on every block in every borough, we continue to prove that point every day,” Adams said. “We are advancing generational projects to deliver the housing New Yorkers need and fighting every day to make our city more affordable and the best place to raise a family.”
Meanwhile, regarding infrastructure around the proposed Flushing Airport site, the NYC EDC and Department of Transportation recently completed a 0.7-mile extension of 132nd Street to improve traffic conditions and “accommodate future traffic growth” in the area, officials said.
A ‘proud legacy’ of union pension investments
The city’s partnership with the New York City Building Trades and Cirrus supports the project to invest pension fund dollars from eleven unions into housing projects on city land.
“Union pension funds have a proud legacy of direct investment in union-built, middle-class housing in New York City, and this project marks the first return to that proven model in decades, at a time when workforce housing is critically needed,” said Joseph McDonnell, managing principal, Cirrus Managing.
