While Sky View may be buoyant now, the mood was once somber. In 2008, Onex and its then-partner Muss Development, a developer based in Queens, broke ground on a former parking lot in a bedraggled industrial area that had been rezoned for residential use in the 1990s.

But the project suffered construction delays during the recession. It was supposed to be completed in 2009 but didn’t open until 2011, which prompted a lawsuit from frustrated buyers. Ultimately, more than 100 of them received refunds, and in summer 2011, sales essentially started again from scratch, though the second time seemed a charm. The building was sold out by 2013.

After those sales, Muss sold its share of the development to Onex. What has likely helped the project steam ahead is the success of the Shops at Skyview Center, a bustling multilevel, 800,000-square-foot mall. Fully leased, including national retailers like Nordstrom Rack and Target, as well as restaurants like Grandma’s Dim Sum, the mall has about 5 million visitors annually, Onex said.

Though the mall, and the sidewalk outside it, can be crowded and loud, Sky View provides a garden on its roof to allow its residents to achieve some peace. Nearly five acres, the open space features a putting green, dog park and tennis courts, and it will be joined by a few more acres of amenities, including an outdoor pool, when the Grand at Sky View Parc opens. There will also be a 10,000-square-foot gym, with Turkish baths. Manhattan’s skyscrapers line the horizon.

Sky View is not the only planned residential development in Flushing to rely on a heavy dose of retail. One Fulton Square, partly constructed on nearby 39th Avenue, for instance, combines its condos with a Hyatt Place hotel and three levels of stores. “When you go to Asia, you see lots of towers built on top of retail like this,” Mr. Dana said.

Whether that’s the draw, Asian buyers are coming, both from the area and beyond. In the first three towers at Sky View, 90 percent of the buyers were Chinese or of Chinese descent, and about 20 percent were from China, according to Onex, and the from-China crowd is expected to be even larger at the next three towers.