City Selects Team for 980-Unit Hunter’s Point South Project

What happened

New York City has selected Slate Property Group, The Hudson Cos. and nonprofit developer Volunteers of America to develop The Orion, a proposed 980-unit housing project in the Hunter’s Point South area of Long Island City, Queens.

The plan would transform a long-vacant, 70,000-square-foot site at 54-42 Second St. into three residential buildings. The project is expected to cost between $650 million and $700 million, according to a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Construction is expected to begin in the next few years.

The city’s selection does not mean the development is fully financed or ready to break ground. The developers have not yet secured financing, and the city’s proposed sale of the land to the development team remains subject to regulatory approval.

The key details

Two-thirds of the 980 apartments are planned as affordable housing. The source identifies 658 affordable units, with most intended for extremely low- to moderate-income New Yorkers. About 149 of those affordable apartments would be supportive housing.

The project would include 6,000 square feet of retail space and 9,000 square feet of community space. Local nonprofit Commonpoint Queens is expected to operate the community offerings, which are planned to include a childcare center, workforce-development center and indoor community pool.

Marvel Architects, a Manhattan-based minority-owned firm, designed the development. Planned resident amenities include rooftop terraces, bicycle storage and fitness space, with residents of all three buildings able to use the project’s amenities.

HPD said the city expects to provide some form of subsidy. The development is also expected to use low-income housing tax credits. The Orion is slated to be the first project to receive a long-term loan through HPD’s Mixed Income Market Initiative, although financing has not yet been secured.

Why it matters

The proposed project would add a substantial number of homes to a single city-owned Long Island City parcel while combining residential, retail and community uses. Its affordable component represents roughly two-thirds of the total planned apartments, and the supportive-housing allocation is a defined portion of that affordable inventory.

The selection also advances the city’s stated approach of using public land for mixed-use housing development. The project is part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s broader housing agenda, which targets production of 200,000 affordable homes and preservation of another 200,000 homes by 2036.

For the selected development team, the project pairs public subsidy expectations and tax-credit financing with a proposed HPD long-term loan. Those components remain consequential because the development team has yet to close its financing.

What to watch

The next milestones are regulatory action on the city’s land sale and the developers’ financing process. HPD’s expected subsidy, the low-income housing tax credit structure and the Mixed Income Market Initiative loan will be central to the project’s capital plan.

The timing of construction is not yet fixed beyond HPD’s expectation that it will start in the next few years. Additional details to watch include the final financing package, the approval timeline, and whether the planned unit mix, supportive-housing count, retail space and community facilities move forward as proposed.