New York & Tri-State + Outer + Finance | February 1, 2019

Silverback, AEW Snare LIC Tower That Will Go Condo

Josh Schuster’s Silverback Development has acquired a 23-story residential tower now going vertical at 24-16 Queens Plaza South in Long Island City. Silverback, along with AEW Capital, purchased the project from Greystone Development for nearly $80 million.

With Amazon’s recent announcement of a headquarters campus in LIC, and what some would call an oversupply of rentals in the market, Silverback plans to convert the project’s rental apartments to condominiums as it completes construction.

“This project speaks to the demand for distinctive condominium buildings in neighborhoods like Long Island City, which has been overloaded with rental inventory in recent years,” said Schuster, Silverback’s founder and managing principal.

Drew Fletcher, head of Greystone’s capital markets advisory team, negotiated the sale on behalf of Greystone Development. A Fletcher-led team, that included Matthew Hirsch and Matthew Klauer, arranged a $54-million acquisition and construction loan from Benefit Street Partners.

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 13-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 15-20 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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