City officials, elected leaders, developers and community members gathered at the location of a formerly vacant illegal dumping ground on Beach 44th Street Wednesday to cut the ribbon at the new 35-acre Arverne East Nature Preserve and Welcome Center along the Rockaway waterfront in Edgemere.
The preserve represents phase one of an ambitious Arverne East development project, which will transform more than 100 acres of underutilized space between Beach 32nd Street and Beach 56th Place into 1,650 units of housing — 80% of which will be affordable, serving low-income and middle-income individuals and families — in addition to retail and community space, a hotel and a tap room and brewery.
“The Rockaway renaissance takes another historic step forward,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said. “What was once a vacant, overgrown illegal dumping ground for decades is now a stunning hub of wildlife and a successful example of what community-centered sustainability looks like. I could not be prouder of this project or of the Arverne East development as a whole, which represents transformational change for a community that had previously been ignored for generations.”
Richards added that future generations would benefit from resources he never had while growing up at the nearby Ocean Villages apartments staring at the blighted oceanfront parcel of land. Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson, who grew up in Far Rockaway, said he looks forward to the completion of the preserve and called the Arverne East development a once-in-a-generation investment.