New York City's Department of Environmental Protection is packing up its Queens operation and heading to Long Island City, locking in a single 155,000-square-foot lease at 24-02 49th Avenue that pulls its offices and laboratory under one roof. The move will consolidate staff and lab space that had been split across smaller borough facilities and will include an exit from DEP’s older Flushing site.
The 20-year deal was first detailed by Commercial Observer, which reported that the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services arranged the lease and that DCAS and DEP filed an application in September 2023 to relocate the agency’s lab to the property. The outlet also noted that the asking rent was not made public and identified the building as Innovo Property Group’s “The Bridge” in Long Island City.
City Records Spell Out Rent, Buildout Cash And Renewal Perks
Public hearing filings in The City Record show DEP will take the entire fifth floor, part of the sixth floor and a dedicated loading dock. Rent begins only after both landlord and tenant construction reach substantial completion.
According to The City Record, annual rent starts at $11,603,010 for the first five years and rises in steps to $15,443,606.31 by the end of the initial term. The notice states that DEP will reimburse more than $105,375,625 for tenant work and chip in roughly $15,824,375 toward base-building upgrades. The filing also spells out a six-month rent abatement period, a tenant termination right after year 10 and three 10-year renewal options at fair-market rent.
Ownership, Neighbors And The Life-Science Play
The Bridge is owned and marketed by Innovo Property Group as a mixed-use industrial, office and life-science complex. Materials from Innovo Property Group note that the lower floors are already locked up on a long-term basis by the New York City Housing Authority, so DEP will be moving in alongside another heavyweight city tenant. Innovo also promotes the upper floors as being prepared for life-science uses, a nod to growing demand for lab-ready space in Long Island City.
Who Cut The Deal
Sources told Commercial Observer that CBRE’s David Stockel and John Isaacs represented DEP in the transaction and that CBRE also handled negotiations for the landlord. Both brokers are listed as part of the New York life-sciences leadership team at CBRE.
Next-Door To A Superfund Cleanup
The property sits close to Newtown Creek, the heavily industrial waterway that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency labeled a federal Superfund site in 2010. The agency has proposed an “early action” cleanup of the creek’s East Branch that would include dredging, in-situ stabilization and capping of contaminated sediment, according to the U.S. EPA.
Advocates say that early action will be technically complex and drawn out and that a full cleanup of Newtown Creek remains a longer-term project, per local reporting in Brooklyn Paper.
What To Watch Next
Under the terms filed in The City Record, the lease clock starts after construction reaches substantial completion and a six-month rent-abatement period runs out, with DEP shouldering most of the fit-out costs. These steps typically take many months, so the move is more of a long game than an overnight shift.
The filings and Innovo’s marketing materials do not directly tie the relocation to the EPA’s Newtown Creek remediation work. For now the deal reads primarily as a consolidation of municipal lab and office capacity rather than a coordinated cleanup hub.
For Long Island City and the surrounding industrial market, the lease secures a major municipal tenant for a long stretch and underlines a broader trend of landlords retooling older industrial properties for lab and technical uses. Market figures for the neighborhood show steady leasing and rising appetite for lab-capable space, according to CBRE.
