All renderings of Long Island City Oyster via CAZA
One seemingly too-cool design for NYC is a mixed-used proposal that would rise from two large parcels of the De Blasio-punted Anable Basin master plan. On public waterfront land to be developed by TF Cornerstone and the NYC EDC, adjacent to parcels previously eyed by Amazon, Brooklyn-based CAZA has designed an ambitious waterfront scheme dubbed Long Island City Oyster ("LIC Oyster"). In an attempt to tackle the area's waning manufacturing presence (thanks in part to luxury housing), the team conceived a creative combination of "density and openness, business synergy and ecological benefits that aim to address the needs of both housing and industry.
CAZA's website explains, "LIC Oyster represents a new development model for NYC by designing connective public spaces that in turn enable a multiplicity of nested domestic spaces amidst a diverse and formally-variegated field of commercial zones thereby imagining new ways of making a home in an increasingly dense and expensive city." Uses are to include a 630,000-square-foot residential tower, a 206,000-square-foot office building, a residential village, a supermarket, and a 7,000-square-foot black box performance space. More than 2.5 acres of public waterfront parkland and open space will unite the area and feature a promenade, a skating rink that converts to an outdoor pool, an eco-themed children's playground, an open plaza for farmer's markets, a ferry landing, a sandy beach, and, yes, a restored oyster-bed wetland.
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As LIC Oyster is currently labeled in design development, it remains to be seen if CAZA's vision is the chosen plan and how much of their grand vision will actually be built. Moreover, the required rezoning approvals and site remediation can take months, and the momentum for rezoning was stalled when the city cut ties with the developers of adjacent parcels in September 2020. However, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s spokesman Mitch Schwartz explained the city with continue to move forward with this public portion of the site in partnership with TF Cornerstone.
Nevertheless, in addition to its programmatic inventiveness, LIC Oyster is a refreshing departure from the cookie-cutter boxes that are overtaking the neighborhood. Its sinuous design of green walls and roofs covering solids of punctuated brick is said to be a reinterpretation of the local industrial aesthetic while imparting the distinctive outlines of an oyster shell. The plan is reminiscent of the concaving towers and open space seen in Two Trees' River Street master plan in Williamsburg. Closer to home, it pairs well with the new Hunters Point outpost of the Queens Public Library, a Steven Holl design that The New York Times has described as "among the finest and most uplifting buildings New York has produced so far this century."
With a new mayoral administration coming into office in 2022, negotiations are likely to restart on adjacent sites owned by MAG Partners, Simon Baron and Plaxall. Earlier today, TRD reported that MAG Partners has begun a partnership with Safanad to pursue building conversion opportunities, purchasing distressed properties, and eventually ground-up development.
A consortium of developers teamed up to push forward a comprehensive rezoning of LIC's Anable Basin area. LIC Oyster sites are colored dark blue.
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