Whitestone Lanes, the 48-lane bowling alley that has hugged the Whitestone Expressway strip in Flushing for decades, has officially rolled its last frame as a neighborhood staple. The property has been sold to a joint venture for $45 million, with Urban Realty Partners teaming up with Mar Mar Realty, the Macaluso family’s development arm, on the deal. For many longtime patrons, the sale closes the book on a local fixture that first opened in the 1960s.
According to records from the City Planning Commission, the parcel was previously rezoned to allow higher-density housing. The commission’s reports outline a roughly nine-story building with about 415 apartments and approximately 14,400 square feet of publicly accessible open space. The map change would convert the block’s M1-1 manufacturing zoning to an R7A residential designation, making way for a residential building that is far larger than the single-story bowling center that has occupied the site for generations.
Deal and financing
Urban Realty Partners and Mar Mar Realty acquired the Whitestone Lanes site for $45 million, as reported by Commercial Observer. JLL brokers Michael Mazzara, Ethan Stanton and Brendan Maddigan negotiated the sale, and JLL’s Aaron Niedermayer arranged roughly $37.06 million in joint-venture financing, according to the outlet. "Our objective was to identify a buyer with the vision, capitalization and execution capabilities necessary to realize the full potential of the site," Mazzara said in a statement to the publication.
What the planning records show
The City Planning materials describe a dense residential project with some built-in community benefits. The approvals contemplate about 415 units, including approximately 113 permanently income-restricted apartments under the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, cellar parking and a publicly accessible area along Farrington Street and 31st Road, per City Planning Commission documents. The rezoning allows a many-times-larger residential envelope than the existing one-story bowling alley, a key step that helped spark development interest in the block.
Neighborhood history and reaction
Whitestone Lanes was opened by the Macaluso family in the 1960s and has long been treated as a neighborhood landmark. Marco Macaluso first brought the building to market for roughly $60 million in 2015, according to contemporaneous reporting by QNS. Neighbors and past customers have responded with a mix of nostalgia and frustration online, with a closure notice and related thread circulating on the local r/Flushing subreddit, where users shared memories of the lanes and raised concerns about traffic and new towers.
Commercial filings and listing materials indicate the block, which consists of multiple lots on Block 4370, has been targeted for redevelopment for several years. The joint venture will now determine a final program and project schedule. At the time of reporting, the principals had not released additional public plans beyond the conceptual approvals, and JLL did not identify the lender named for the financing in its press materials.
