$145.9M Posts Against Astoria's 400 MWh Battery Project

A $145,869,596.72 agreement between East River ESS, LLC, the New York City Industrial Development Agency and Wilmington Trust was recorded on August 26 against two Astoria tax lots on 20th Avenue. The project behind it is the East River Energy Storage System, the battery plant the city’s industrial agency has called its largest, on the former Poletti power plant site.

Why it matters

Battery storage is the least understood competitor for industrial land in New York. It does not need much building, it does not need people, and it sits on exactly the waterfront manufacturing parcels that logistics and housing developers are also chasing. What this filing shows is how the deals are actually structured: the industrial agency takes a leasehold, leases it back, a trustee holds the paper, and the developer owns none of the dirt. For anyone bidding against energy storage for a site, that is the competing capital stack, and it is a materially cheaper one than a fee purchase.

The numbers

The collateral is Queens Block 850, Lots 1 and 100. City land records put those lots at 8,073,465 sq ft and 2,102,033 sq ft, owned of record by Con Edison and the Power Authority of the State of New York, both zoned M3-1. The developer holds a lease, not title, which is why two memoranda of lease were recorded in the same batch.

The recorded amount has moved. The August agreement references one prior instrument, a $169,449,940 mortgage recorded July 9, 2025 carrying the same three parties. That is a decline of $23,580,343.28, or 13.9%, over thirteen months, which is the shape of a construction facility being resized or drawn down rather than a distressed mark.

East River ESS, LLC gives an address at 400 Spectrum Center Drive in Irvine, California, the corporate address of 174 Power Global, the Hanwha-owned developer credited with the project. The plant has been publicly described at 100 MW and 400 MWh.

What’s next

The figure we could not resolve from the record is whether this is tax-exempt agency debt or conventional financing wearing an agency structure, and the instrument type alone does not say. Watch for a certificate of completion or a further agreement, either of which would mark the project moving from construction into operation. For the rest of the New York industrial picture, see our coverage of $136M of new debt on 14.7 acres of Bronx waterfront and the New York market.