February 25, 2019
New York Eater: How a Real Estate Boom Shaped Flushing’s Highly Competitive New Dining Scene

Take a look at the current restaurant options at One Fulton Square in downtown Flushing — a mixed-use development home to luxe condos, retail, and a hotel — and you’ll get a good idea of what’s in store for the neighborhood’s future.

The person driving much of the dining lineup for new developments is Helen Lee, the executive vice president of F&T. The company built One Fulton Square and is also behind two other sprawling mixed-use projects, Flushing Commons and Tangram, which are still under development. Between the latter two properties, Lee is responsible for choosing tenants for more than 300,000 square feet of retail space under development, much of which will be dedicated to restaurants. At Flushing Commons, an open-air plaza full of outdoor cafes and restaurants is in the works, while at Tangram, an indoor mall, food hall, and beer garden are planned. F&T is also behind Queens Crossing, a 2007 development that  Lee renovated in 2016, adding a new food court and giving it the trendier label of Her developments — along with more than a dozen new properties in the area — mean a whole new crowd of Flushing locals.

At the yet-to-open Tangram, the choices lean even more international: Brazilian steakhouses, French-Moroccan restaurants, and classic Italian joints have expressed interest, Lee says. Over at Flushing Commons, she brought in global hot pot sensation Hai Di Lao — a move she says “solidified Flushing as the hot pot capital of New York.”

View original on https://ny.eater.com/