Cornaga Plaza Beach 19th
Location: Queens, NY
Client: Radson Development
Type: Affordable Housing
Size: 190,622 SF
Units: 173
Beach 19th comprises 173 affordable residential units with a commercial space that occupies most of the ground floor. It joins Beach 20th as part of a two-building 245,000 square foot mixed-use development in Far Rockaway. The former brownfield site falls within the Special Downtown Far Rockaway District, a comprehensive plan that aims to revitalize the area by strengthening commercial activities and encouraging a diverse mix of uses, while taking advantage of vacant and underutilized sites near the mass transit zone.
The design maximizes zoning bulk through an irregular floorplate and the use of dormers along Cornaga Avenue and Beach 19th Street. Locating the residential lobby and circulation core at the corner of the site gives the entrance prominence along the streetscape, demarcates the intersection of the two streets and helps break the mass of the building into two separate volumes.
Large south facing windows along this vertical line will bring generous amounts of natural lighting into the building’s main corridors. This orientation also offers views from a 10th floor roof deck of the Far Rockaway community and Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Ample space for indoor and outdoor recreation is provided across the building.
Photos by Ari Burling, Alexander Severin.