A wholly Latina and women-owned development firm is plotting what appears to be one of its first major ground-up projects in Queens.
Vaya Development, led by Melissa Bindra, filed plans for a 285-unit residential building at 164-02 Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica, the Commercial Observer reported. The plans call for a 28-story, 291,000-square-foot development to replace the existing two-story commercial building on the site.
Vaya would collaborate on the development with Communilife, which helps provide housing for vulnerable communities. Separate units would contain “sleeping accommodations” for the nonprofit, which paid $13.5 million to Francmen Realty’s Ronald Menashe for the development site last May.
Amenities in the development would include a recreation space halfway up the building and rooftop space. Stat Architecture will design the project.
The filing was first reported by PincusCo. Vaya did not respond to a request for comment from the Observer about the project.
Vaya doesn’t list a portfolio of developments on its website, but its moves are becoming increasingly newsworthy. Earlier this year, it signed a $483.3 million construction and acquisition loan with Merchants Capital, the New York City Housing Authority and the NYC Housing Development Corporation for nine properties in Harlem.
Notably, its latest project is in the 230-block area rezoned towards the tail-end of the Eric Adams administration.
In October, the City Council approved the rezoning in Jamaica, expected to create 11,800 housing units, of which 4,200 will be permanently affordable. The rezoning included the largest Mandatory Inclusionary Housing zone — which requires a certain percentage of housing units to be set aside as affordable — ever mapped in the city.
Before approval, City Council reduced the density allowed in areas south of downtown Jamaica and removed portions of certain districts along the southern corridor from the rezoning. The changes cut 490 units off the city’s housing projections for the rezoning, which were initially pegged at 12,300 units.
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