This futuristic plan would bring a new village and waterfront pool to LIC

A futuristic proposal is being floated for Long Island City that would bring two towers, a waterfront pool and beach, a new ferry landing, a skating rink, a park and a theater to the area.

The site—just north of where Amazon almost placed a new headquarters at Anable Basin— is owned by TF Cornerstone. The conceptual plan developed by CAZA would potentially be called "Long Island City Oyster."

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Designed by Brooklyn-based studio CAZA, the $925 million plan calls for an office tower and a residential tower, but also a 7,000-square-foot black box performance space, a waterfront ice skating rink that converts into a pool, a riverside bosque, a restored oyster-bed wetland, an eco-themed children’s playground, an almost three-acre park, an open plaza for farmer’s markets, a sandy beach and a ferry landing.

"LIC Oyster reinterprets the local industrial aesthetic of arches punctuating brick surfaces to create public gateways and swooping sky terraces imparting the distinctive outlines of an oyster shell while internally creating interlocking learning platforms where students can gain hands-on experience at innovative light manufacturing businesses that foster a curriculum of educational stewardship," CAZA says on its website.

CityRealty, which first reported the plan, says that the momentum for rezoning this site was stalled when the city cut ties with the developers of adjacent parcels in September 2020, but Mayor Bill de Blasio's spokesman Mitch Schwartz said that the city with continue to move forward with this public portion of the site in partnership with TF Cornerstone.

What do you think of the plan? 

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