Astoria Cove Zoning Approval
Astoria Cove is a proposed 2.2 million sq. ft. waterfront development overlooking the Manhattan skyline located in Astoria, Queens. The project will transform an important portion of an isolated, underutilized industrial area into a modern real estate development reopening portions of the East River for the first time in nearly a century. Despite these benefits, the project faced significant political and community headwinds.
The Butler Associates was brought on to implement a multifaceted communications strategy to magnify support of the project and gradually alter negative messaging in the media. Butler Associates helped create a new narrative.
With significant attention and focus on some of the top New York City editorial pages, we delineated positive attributes of the project. This resulted in more than two dozen editorials and opinion page placements in the NY Post, NY Daily News, NY Times, Crain’s New York Business and many community news outlets reporting on favorable facets of Astoria Cove.
Our communications efforts helped turn the messaging away from NIMBYism and rhetoric by framing a series of feature articles on unique attributes of the project. These included front page features in the NY Post Real Estate Section, NY Commercial Observer, Queens Gazette, Queens Tribune and Queens Times Ledger.
The Butler Associates team also captured video and developed written testimonies from community supporters for a 5-minute video featured at a critical zoning hearing.
Within just three months, the PR efforts resulted in the approval of the project at multiple levels of the city government’s review process, allowing the multi-billion-dollar development to move forward. What’s more, the project set a historical precedent for future developments, as the first approved under New York Mayor de Blasio’s new affordable housing guidelines.