By Chris Fuchs
The 24-year-old group – which provides hundreds of clients with housing in dormlike facilities or individual apartments in Queens and the Bronx – announced in 1999 its plans to move to a two-story building at 10-16 162nd St. in Whitestone.
“The building has been completed for a couple of months,” said Stephanie L. Stewart, a spokeswoman for Transitional Services. Stewart said since the city misplaced the group's request for a certificate of occupancy and did not issue one until November, the 21 employees could not move in before.
Rumors had circulated among Whitestone residents in 1999 about the building housing a drug-treatment facility. But Stewart emphasized that Transitional Services does not provide such treatment. Most of the patients whom the group serves suffer from depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or diseases affecting the ability to organize thoughts, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
The group's administrative officers were in Flushing for six years at 28-08 Bayside Lane, but because Transitional Services needed more space and the landlord had put the building on the market in 1999, the administrators were forced to look for another site.
“The office is strictly administrative operations – no client services,” Stewart said. “The building was designed to take all of the administrative services.”
Stewart said the group's Bayside Lane location was only 4,000 square feet, while the Whitestone facility was 7,200 square feet. The facility will house the group's accounting, finance, intake, public relations, purchasing and quality control department as well as its executive offices.
Transitional Services has offices in Queens Village, Jamaica and Far Rockaway.
