The Queensboro People’s Space (QPS) is a community project that proposes to repurpose the underutilized city-owned building at 44-36 Vernon Blvd for small businesses, non-profits, and artists/cultural workers who need affordable working spaces to survive and succeed. We’re fighting to ensure public land is preserved for public good.
When this building was offered to Amazon as part of the HQ2 deal, the community pushed back. After the deal collapsed, neighbors, organizers, and local leaders came together to put forward a different vision – one that counters displacement, rising rents, and the loss of cultural and economic diversity. The QPS plan was created from community input gathered through workshops and outreach that’s been conducted since 2021.
QPS offers a model of community stewardship that preserves space for artists, manufacturers, and immigrant-owned businesses, while strengthening equity, culture, and the long-term economic future of Queens. With the 2025 OneLIC rezoning, this issue is even more crucial; LIC’s population will continue to increase without adequately increasing its commercial spaces.
Learn more about our community vision
Guiding Principles
Our planning is anchored by the following principles:
Keep public land in the public’s hands
Public land must be used for the public good. Instead of selling public land to for-profit developers, we should develop these sites for necessary public uses- like QPS, an accessible community hub with deeply affordable rents for small businesses, non-profit organizations and artists.
Deeply affordable commercial rent to combat displacement
Housing isn’t the only affordability crisis in NYC. Small businesses, non-profits, and artists/cultural workers need deeply affordable commercial spaces in order to remain and thrive in the communities they have helped build over time. As a community land trust, QPS will offer deeply and permanently affordable rents to protect small businesses, non-profits and artists.
Redevelopment must align with our climate reality
The building at 44-36 Vernon Blvd is a robust and historic structure, built nearly 100 years ago. It is an urban asset that has stood the test of time. To tear it down and build new would be out of alignment from both global sustainability goals and climate resilience best practices. The QPS project proposes to repurpose/renovate it using sustainable practices to reduce pollution and improve energy efficiency.
Equitable economic development starts in our communities
Communities are the experts in what we need most. Plans that respond to our actual needs – not profit motives – result in more equitable economic development, welcomed by a wide swath of neighbors. We’re proud that the plans for QPS come out of 5+ years of community organizing and visioning right here in Western Queens.
Public land should serve the public good. This building is our chance to make that real.
The building at 44-36 Vernon Boulevard has always belonged to the public. But for a moment, it almost didn’t.
Once slated for Amazon’s HQ2, this city-owned site in Long Island City was on track to become yet another exclusive development until community opposition helped stop the deal. That moment made one thing clear: if the community didn’t step forward, this public building would simply be handed to the next greedy developer or multinational corporation in line.Queensboro People’s Space (QPS) is our answer to profit-driven trends that threaten to displace artists, small manufacturers, community services and immigrant businesses.
Queensboro People’s Space (QPS) is our answer to profit-driven trends that threaten to displace artists, small manufacturers, community services and immigrant businesses.
This vision was built by listening to the people most affected.
Located just blocks from Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing development in the country, this site sits at the heart of one of the fastest-gentrifying neighborhoods in America.
In 2021, residents, artists, workers, organizers, and small business owners across Western Queens came together to imagine what this building could become.
Through neighborhood tabling, community conversations, and focused workshops on Manufacturing, Food Justice, Arts, and Care, people spoke from lived experience about what was missing and what was urgently needed.
That collective work became the Queensboro People’s Space Feasibility Report, developed by Bagchee Architects along with WQCLT and launched publicly in 2022 with broad community and elected official support.QPS was created to challenge a familiar pattern in Long Island City and its surroundings – development that happens to communities, not with them. We believe development should strengthen neighborhoods, not displace them.
QPS was created to challenge a familiar pattern in Long Island City and its surroundings – development that happens to communities, not with them. We believe development should strengthen neighborhoods, not displace them.
When we work, create, and grow together, we strengthen the entire neighborhood.
Queensboro People’s Space is designed to build more than just programming – it builds connection, opportunity, and belonging.
By creating permanently affordable space for manufacturing, arts, food, and community use, QPS helps neighbors stay rooted, small businesses grow, and creativity thrive. These shared spaces support local jobs, local culture, and a stronger neighborhood fabric.
QPS will include features such as deeply affordable manufacturing space, artist and music studios, a commissary kitchen, a food co-op, community classrooms and meeting space, a tool-lending library, and a rooftop garden – places where Long Island City can continue to build, share, and flourish together.
By placing this site under community stewardship, we can ensure it serves Queens for generations.
Public land should remain in community hands.
In May 2025, the City issued a Request for Information (RFI) for the site. Western Queens Community Land Trust submitted a proposal to bring Queensboro People’s Space to life and was supported by more than 65 letters of support from elected officials, artists, small businesses, and community organizations. A formal Request for Proposals (RFP) is expected in 2026.
The future of this building is still being decided. It’s up to all of us in the community to determine that future. Join our mailing list and attend a WQCLT event to stay involved and help make Queensboro People’s Space a reality!
