Astoria Sports Complex (Google Maps)
Sept. 1, 2021 By Allie Griffin
The owner of a sports complex in Astoria — who once dreamed of expanding his property by constructing an indoor soccer field and ice rink — has sold his 38th Street building to a self-storage company.
The Astoria Sports Complex, a building located at 34-38 38th St. that houses a gym, pool and turf fields, was sold to Storage Deluxe for $20 million on Aug. 17, financial records show. Storage Deluxe plans to overhaul the building and open a storage facility in early 2023.
Steve Poliseno, the longtime owner of the sports complex, sold the 53,550-square-foot building after failing to get a building variance that would have allowed him to raise the center two stories. The additional stories would have included a regulation-sized soccer field and ice rink.
Steve Poliseno, center, and his children (Queens Post photo)
Poliseno needed the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) to grant him an exemption from a rear yard zoning requirement in order to expand the building. His application got nowhere.
Instead Storage Deluxe plans to add seven stories atop the existing structure and open storage rentals by early 2023, The Real Deal reported.
Storage units are more in line with zoning requirements, according to the real estate outlet.
Poliseno’s plans won the support the Queens Borough president’s office, the local community board and the Queens Chamber of Commerce.
His plan also had the backing of Kaufman Astoria Studio president and CEO Hal Rosenbluth.
“I want to build this for the good of the community, we don’t have anything like this anywhere nearby,” Poliseno told the Queens Post in 2017.
However, the BSA refused to hear most testimony for the plan, arguing that the proposed expansion would change the character of the neighborhood, Poliseno told QNS in March 2020.
“I am beyond frustration and exasperation at this point,” Poliseno told the publication. “I’m 72 years years old and it’s been a 43-year goal of mine to expand this place to give the people of Astoria a wonderful place to bring their families.”
He withdrew his application before the Board of Standards and sold the building, The Real Deal reported.
The sports facility closed at the beginning of July.
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10 Comments
I swam at their pool for years, and it was a good deal. Since closing though, they have still not, as of October 27, refunded the unused portion of my year-long contract, as they said they would. Mr. Poliseno still owes me $229.
Since they were closing, Victor promised a refund for the money that I spent on the unused portion of my membership. He confirmed that I would receive it in August after the gym auction was settled in July. We had conversations in person and on the telephone. I still have not received any money. I thought the Polisano family were men of their words???
None of this makes sense. I was a member of the Astoria Sports complex and as early as May the owner’s son was already bragging about the 8-story addition they were going to make to the building. When they shut down in June, they insisted it was because they were going to add those several stories of gym space. If they already knew by then that the BSA wasn’t going to hear their case, then why “temporarily” shut down the gym in June with almost no warning to clients? My guess is that the owners already knew well before then that they were going to make an easy buck by selling the property to yet another self-storage company and were just trying to save face with the community.
We should flood the Board of “Standards” with letters. What exactly are their standards? Yet another ugly, lifeless self storage does what for the neighborhood?
Clearly, their palms are being crossed with silver by whatever real estate/developers build and profit from these atrocities.
Corruption.
It was fun to take some swings there. But c’mon the snobs need a place to store their extra E-bike.
Soon DeBlasio will move the homeless into the self storage facility.
Isn’t this located in an Industrial Business Zone (IBZ)?
Self storage facilities were banned in IBZs a few years ago.
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/industrial-rezoning-us-cities
I grew up in this place with all of the original Astoria residents. The owner was the nicest guy. We were all kids pooling money for half courts and sometimes the full court upstairs. He would let us play even beyond what we paid for. He would give the kids extra tokens for the batting cage on 37th st. We would go swimming in the pool. There use to be arcades by the front desk. I am beyond sad to see this one go.
Bureaucracy at its worst…. What a loss to the Astoria community…The sports facility was a great place . So instead we get another ugly self storage building, just what we needed!!!!!! Oh what a shame…
Very sad. The sports complex was a great asset to the neighborhood.