Aurora, 29-11 Queens Plaza North: Review and Ratings

Review of 29-11 Queens Plaza North by Carter Horsley

This quite attractive, 30-story, mixed-use tower at 29-11 Queens Plaza North was erected in 2016 by G Holdings, of which Etai Gross is a principal, and designed with some subtle touches by Mike Arad of Handel Architects.

Its main façade is reflective glass with a thin light-colored concrete frame above a low-rise base with thin piers.

The top 15 floors of the building, whose west side is angled, has 132 rental apartments.  The base is a 160-room Marriott Courtyard Hotel.

The building is called Aurora.

Bottom Line

A classy glass tower replacement for a low-rise neo-classical-style bank building in Long Island City, this mixed-use tower has some surprises such as one pier of recessed angled windows in the middle of its main façade and some horizontal slit windows on an angled side façade.

Description

This glass tower is setback at an angled on a low-rise, light-colored base.

The tower has one pier of recessed angled windows in the middle of the upper portion of its façade.

It also has some horizontal slit windows about half way up its angled side façade that make for very dramatic deeply recessed windows in living rooms with plenty of all space above for hanging pictures.

The building is about half a block away from an elevated subway line.

Amenities

The building has a garage, a 30^th floor fitness center with a double-height residents’ lounge, a roof deck, storage and a bicycle room.

Apartments

Apartments have floor-to-ceiling windows, 9-to-11-foot ceilings, wide plank oak flooring, solar shades and kitchens with white lacquer cabinetry, white quartz countertops, five-burner Bertazzoni ranges, Liebherr refrigerators and Bosch dishwashers. 

Some apartments on the building’s angled west side have dramatic, long, inset horizontal windows in the middle of walls.

Bathrooms have Toto toilets and white quartz and lacquer vanities.

Apartment G on floors 27-29 is a three-bedroom unit with an entry next to an open, pass-through kitchen that leads to a large living room.

Apartment E on floors 26-30 is a two-bedroom unit with an entry next to an open, pass-through kitchen that leads to a living room.

Apartment B on floors 16-30 is a one-bedroom unit has a angled living room with an open kitchen in an alcove.

History

An October 31, 2007 article by Nicholas Hirshon at www.nydailynews.com noted that “residents who grew up admiring a neo-classical Long Island City bank that went up with Queens Plaza around 1910 are partly blaming themselves for its unceremonious demise.” 

“Many locals,” the article continued, “said they feel guilty they never contacted the city Landmarks Preservation Commission before crews recently began tearing down the former Long Island City Savings Bank,” adding that Jerry Walsh, president of the Dutch Kills Civic Association, which covers Queens Plaza, said that “it should have always been a landmark, but we really never did anything about it.”

The article noted that “much of the Art Deco-themed interior, included brass-lined teller windows, was gutted as the bank converted into a nightclub in the early 2000s, locals said.”