Variety Boys and Girls Club to present expansion plans on Thursday
Variety Boys and Girls Club, located at 21-12 30th Road, will present its plans for expansion before Community Board 1 on Thursday May 24 at 6:30 p.m.
The public hearing will be at the Ravenswood Community Center, located at 35-40 21st Street.
The 63-year-old youth services organization is seeking to expand to a state-of-the-art, five-story facility. The new building would have brand new amenities and features such as:
- A 400-seat shared education space
- 50 spots for day care/child care
- An 80-seat Universal Pre-Kindergarten space
- Tech-incubator space for community-based nonprofits
- 65-seat planetarium
- 175-year community theater
- Fully-equipped video, audio and film production room
- STEAM research center
- 250-seat event center and conference space
- Working kitchen with pizza ovens and bakery equipment
- 3,000 square feet of retail
- Rooftop garden with sustainable energy learning
- 1,000-square-foot BioBus base and research center
- Entrepreneurial Makerspace
- Double-sized gym and new pool
To help pay for the new $80 million facility, Variety will work with a developer to build a 14-story, 112-unit residential building on its property. Thirty percent of those units will be affordable.
But Variety’s team says it’ll be worth having a new youth and community center that will serve the Astoria and Long Island City communities for generations.
Read more about Variety’s expansion proposal here.