The history of development on Long Island involves transformations, but few, if any, are as dramatic as what RXR has been doing at Garvies Pont in Glen Cove.
RXR is transforming what is essentially a decades-old industrial wasteland into a 56-acre mixed-use community 30 miles from midtown Manhattan.
Working in partnership with the City of Glen Cove, they are building more than 1,000 new housing units, 75,000 square feet of new commercial and retail space, and 28 acres of waterfront promenades and parks.
That’s along with a public waterfront park and open space on land that had been closed to the public due to contamination.
That $1.1 billion plan to build 1,100 apartments and condos along Hempstead Harbor is more than halfway done. RXR already has built about 600 units, including 55 workforce housing apartments
The development of Garvies Point, including parks and recreation on the waterfront, condominium residences, and rental apartments, amounts to a revision of the region.
All of this is at what had been a contaminated Brownfield site, since remediated to make way for development.
“We took a huge tract of blighted land and we created a seaside gem,” Joe Graziose, RXR Realty’s executive vice president of residential development and construction, told the Long Island Press.
Works in progress
According to RXR, the project created approximately 150 permanent jobs in addition to over 1,300 construction jobs and generated $4.5 million in local tax revenue resulting from an over $500 million investment in the community.
The development includes The Beacon Premium Condominium Residences and Village Square luxury rentals, and Harbor Landing luxury rentals all near Glen Cove Creek and the 62-acre Garvies Point Preserve.
Harbor Landing’s buildings with 385 rentals opened in 2019 and 2020. The Beacon, with167 condo units, opened in 2020, and the Village Square opened with 146 apartments in 2020.
The $53.9 million Village Square project includes a 16,500-square-foot plaza, 15,600 square feet of retail, and 171 parking spots. Ten percent of its apartments are designated for workforce housing.
Graziose has called these “some of the largest projects on Long Island” as they collectively help redevelop the region.
The projects include parks, an esplanade, dog park, amphitheater, lawns and open space all funded by homeowner associations, rather than the public.
They include retail and restaurants such as the Garvies Point Brewery, which offers signature beers and has what RXR calls a “local following.”
Growing Glen Cove
RXR got $263 million in tax breaks from Glen Cove’s Industrial Development Agency and the city’s Local Economic Assistance Corp. for Garvies Point. Others also see Glen Cove as a good place to build.
Georgica Green Ventures developed The Green at Garvies Point, a workforce housing development with 55 affordable apartments, completed in 2023,
Gov. Kathy Hochul said that and other development nearby “is part of the city of Glen Cove’s revitalization effort that is transforming its waterfront into a vibrant, new, mixed-use area.”
“We’re creating more affordable, safe housing for New Yorkers on Long Island,” Hochul said.“It supports the transformation of Glen Cove’s underutilized waterfront, bringing much-needed workforce housing to Nassau County.”
The Green at Garvies Point includes two new, four-story buildings with four studio apartments, 16 one-bedroom apartments, 29 two-bedrooms and six three-bedrooms.
Georgica Green President David Gallo has said he is happy “to be part of the incredible rebirth of Garvies Point.”
Back to the future
Although Garvies Point has been getting a new lease on life, the land had been vacant and even abandoned for years.
Garvies Point had been contaminated by the Mattiace Petrochemical Company, a chemical storage and drum cleaning company, that discharged chemicals and wastewater into Glen Cove Creek.
Mattiace Petrochemical operated at the site from the 1960s until 1987 when it went bankrupt. The Environmental Protection Agency in 2014 finalized a plan to remediate the site.
It has taken decades to develop the land, starting back in 2002 when plans were pitched. Developers changed, an environmental cleanup occurred and lawsuits delayed construction.
While Garvies Point is a big RXR development, it is just one of the ambitious projects being pursued by RXR, which manages over 30 million square feet of commercial properties with a gross asset value of $21.2 billion.
RXR also has a multi-family residential portfolio of 8,000 units operating or being developed, and JFK Terminal 6, a $4.2 billion terminal with ten gates that would connect to JetBlue’s Terminal 5.
RXT said that job is expected to generate more than 4,000 jobs, including 1,800 union construction jobs, as well as direct wages of nearly $2 billion and 30 percent of the total economic investment given to minority and women-owned businesses.
It’s also building 175 Park Avenue, which is expected to rise 1,575 feet and encompass over 2.8 million square feet, making it one of the tallest office buildings in the Western Hemisphere.
Located adjacent to Grand Central Terminal at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, the building is planned to be directly connected to four different subway lines, the LIRR and Metro-North commuter rail lines, and several bus lines.
And it is expanding is national portfolio and development pipeline in Phoenix, Denver, Raleigh, and Tampa.
Portfolio management
All of these make RXR, led by Scott Rechler, a key player in the changing landscape of Long Island and New York City.
Rechler, RXR’s chief executive officer and chairman, leads the company after serving as the Chair and CEO of Reckson Associates, which he helped take public in 1995.
RXR was founded in 2007 after Reckson Associates was sold for over $6 billion, generating a 700% return to Reckson’s investors.
Since its founding, RXR has raised over $10 billion of private equity and built an over 400-person team of professionals with expertise in operations, construction and development, investment management, and more.
