Big hotel coming to downtown Jamaica

From AM-NY:

Downtown Jamaica has worked hard to reclaim its status as a destination for shoppers.

Now officials are hoping to make it a lively tourist hub, with plans for a dozen new hotels as well as residential towers and retail stores.

After decades of plans and proposals to revive the area, progress can be seen in two towers rising near Jamaica Station on Sutphin Boulevard.

One of those sites will hold a Fairfield Inn and Courtyard by Marriott with more than 300 rooms; and the other, a mixed income housing development.

Hope Knight, president of the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, said the group hopes to attract travelers who would otherwise stay in hotels outside John F. Kennedy Airport, where there is little for them to do.

“Being able to stay in downtown Jamaica is a competitive advantage,” said Knight, who pointed out the AirTrain, subway and Long Island Rail Road all stop at Jamaica Station. “And they can get to Downtown Brooklyn or Penn Station in 20 minutes.”

Jamaica department store not happening soon

From DNA Info:

The deal to bring the first major department store to downtown Jamaica in more than three decades, announced nearly three years ago with great fanfare, has recently been terminated, officials said.

In May 2013, reps for the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation and the Blumenfeld Development Group said that they had signed an agreement to convert two parking lots on 168th Street, near 90th Avenue, into a massive 160,000-square-foot retail store and a 550-space parking garage.

In Nov. 2014, officials from Blumenfeld said that they were looking for a possible "anchor store," and were talking to several retailers, including Costco, Burlington Coat Factory, Target and BJ’s Wholesale.

Huge development in the works for downtown Jamaica

From the Real Deal:

BRP Companies paid $19.5 million to purchase a Downtown Jamaica development site where it plans to build a pair of mixed-use towers with 580 rental apartments. The Midtown-based developer, which specializes in affordable housing, bought the site at the corner of Sutphin Boulevard and Archer Avenue from the nonprofit Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, which spent years assembling the site. BRP plans to break ground in December on the $300 million, 737,000-square-foot project dubbed the Crossing at Jamaica Station, which will include 580 mixed-income apartments and 100,000 square feet of retail across three floors. FXFOWLE is serving as the architect.

Jamaica getting affordable housing...and big box stores

From the Queens Courier:

Developers of a plan to transform two parallel open-air parking lots in Jamaica into a massive retail center will also add a housing component to the mix, The Courier has learned.

The project, which has been expanded since an initial announcement in 2013, is a joint effort between the owner of the parking lots near 168th Street and 90th Avenue, the nonprofit Greater Jamaica Development Corp. (GJDC), and Blumenfeld Development Group (BDG).

The GJDC will transfer the lots to Blumenfeld, which will construct a 265,000-square-foot retail center, an affordable housing residential building and a parking garage with about 550 spots to replace the lost parking in the deal. Blumenfeld will return the garage to the not-for-profit agency after completion of the project, according to representatives of the developer. The project is estimated to cost $85 million at this point.

The second parking lot, between 168th Street and 169th Street, will have a retail component to complement the shopping center across the street as well as the residential building and the parking garage.

Blumenfeld has already spoken to a number of big-box retailers to be the anchor tenant of the project, representatives said, including BJ’s, Costco and Burlington Coat Factory.

Is Jamaica where the artists want to be?

From the Times Ledger:

Jamaica may provide the stage artists are scouring the city for, one study suggests.

An 18-month analysis on art workspace in Queens by Exploring the Metropolis Inc., which connects artists and performance facilities in the city, found Jamaica is ripe for an artistic revival.

David Johnson, Exploring the Metropolis’ executive director, told the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. at its quarterly meeting last week that the neighborhood could take steps to bolster its attractiveness to artists, including soliciting an affordable loft development.

“Jamaica is so well-positioned in terms of transit, it just seems like low hanging fruit,” Johnson told nearly 50 peopled gathered in the Harvest Room Oct. 15. “With the upcoming development, it’s a great opportunity to really focus on artists’ live-work space, find the space, find the developers who can do this.”

Johnson noted an East Harlem school that was transformed into a 90-unit live-work development for working artists received 53,000 applications.

“Clearly, there is a demand for this,” he said.

The Greater Jamaica Development Corp. leaders expressed interest in buttressing the area’s creative capital, saying it spurs economic development and personal fulfillment.

Gigantic tower planned for downtown Jamaica

From the Queens Courier:

A new mixed-use, residential and commercial $225 million building with hundreds of units is planned for Downtown Jamaica near the AirTrain, officials said.

Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC), which owns the 93-01 Sutphin Blvd. site, recently announced the project and that BRP Companies, a New York-based developer, will build the tower.

On completion, the tower will have 400 residential units and at least 80,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, according to the GJDC.

MTA wants hotel near AirTrain

From Crain's:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is expected to green light a development project on Wednesday that will result in a new $35 million hotel in Jamaica Queens at the Long Island Rail Road station.

The MTA's finance committee approved the deal on Monday. It will go before the full board for a vote Wednesday morning. A spokesman for the agency said the board is expected to approve the transaction, which involves selling a plot of land to developer, Able Management Group, for $1.7 million. Able was one of two firms that submitted a request for a proposal last year to develop the property into a 210-room, 24-story hotel.

The MTA owns about a third of the land, the full cost of which is $4.5 million. Located across from the AirTrain Station, the hotel is a coup for the Greater Jamaica Development Corp., which owns the remainder of the land.

Come to Jamaica to leave it

From the NY Post:

The only tenant so far in a long-planned retail center that’s supposed to attract shoppers to downtown Jamaica will be a bus station that instead takes them away — to the Resorts World racino at Aqueduct Raceway.

A sign in one of the three storefronts, which have remained empty since they were finished last June, advertises: “Coming soon: Bus Depot Here!”

The Greater Jamaica Development Corp., the politically connected nonprofit that used $9.2 million in taxpayer money to clean up the area and develop the retail arcade, says it has signed a lease with Resorts World for the largest of the storefronts on Sutphin Boulevard.

It will basically be a waiting room for free shuttle buses that run to the racino every 20 minutes. The 2,300-square-foot space is now an empty shell.

The storefronts were the centerpiece of the revitalization of the Sutphin Boulevard underpass under the Jamaica Long Island Rail Road station. Rep. Gregory Meeks secured Federal Transit Administration funds for the site.

The money and other grants that the Queens Democrat sent to Greater Jamaica are under investigation by the US Attorney’s Office, which last year issued a subpoena to the nonprofit seeking information on the funds.

Trying to polish coal into a diamond

From the Daily News:

A southeast Queens development group is seeking to turn downtown Jamaica into a shopping and hospitality hub.

The Greater Jamaica Development Corp. and the city have released requests for proposals for commercial or hospitality projects at two separate sites across the street from the AirTrain station to Kennedy Airport.

“A lot of people come through Jamaica, but don’t come to Jamaica,” Greater Jamaica President Carlisle Towery said Thursday. “We want it to be a destination.”

The area is known for its discount shopping and abundance of public transportation.

In the last few years, small hotels have also begun to sprout up in downtown Jamaica. Plans are in the works for a half-acre park, and now two residential projects are slated to go up.

Feds probing Meeks' money

From the NY Post:

Federal investigators are scrutinizing millions in taxpayer dollars that Rep. Gregory Meeks steered to a Queens nonprofit.

The US Attorney’s Office recently issued a subpoena to the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. seeking information on federal funding secured by Meeks, a government source told The Post.

Fred Winters, a spokesman for Greater Jamaica, confirmed that the organization had received a subpoena and said it was not the target of the federal investigation. He refused to say who was.

Greater Jamaica has been a funding favorite of Meeks. His political mentor, the Rev. Floyd Flake, sits on the board.

Carlisle Towery, the president of Greater Jamaica, kicked in $1,000 in June to Meeks’ re-election campaign.

The Queens Democrat has arranged for numerous grants to the organization, including $9.2 million from the Federal Transit Administration to fix up a decrepit underpass below the Long Island Rail Road tracks and create a shopping arcade there.

Another $8.2 million in federal money is to go toward an extension of Atlantic Avenue.

The long-delayed underpass project was finally completed this spring, and Meeks appeared at a “lighting ceremony” with other officials to symbolically open the dark underpass. But the row of four newly built storefronts — a total of 5,500 square feet of space — sits empty.

Warning issued to Greater Jamaica Development Corporation

From the NY Post:

The head of the Port Authority blasted a Queens nonprofit for failing to develop property that it bought with $2.7 million in taxpayer cash.

Patrick Foye said the PA, which paid for the purchase, would confiscate the property if the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. does not move swiftly to develop it, The Post has learned.

“I am deeply troubled by the lack of progress by the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. over the past 10 years at Jamaica Station,” Foye said. “The people of Jamaica deserve better.”

A Post investigation revealed last month that the PA gave Greater Jamaica $2.7 million in 2004 to buy a rundown market near the Jamaica LIRR and AirTrain stations and turn the site into an office building for JetBlue or other tenants. If nothing happened by the end of 2008, the PA was to get its money back or get the building.

Foye said that after a 45-day review — prompted by the Post exposé — Greater Jamaica would get one last chance to develop the property. It uses the Sutphin Avenue building for meetings and rented a portion to a car service.

The PA also wants Greater Jamaica to conduct a competitive search for a developer by Aug. 20 and set up a timetable for the project. Construction must begin by first quarter 2013, or the PA would take the building.

A spokesman for Greater Jamaica said it was “cooperating fully with the PA and expects to have a developer in place within 180 days.”

What exactly does GJDC do anyway?

From the NY Post:

It rakes in millions in taxpayer money, pays its executives handsomely, and likes to tout its grand visions.

But critics and business owners say that in the 45 years the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. has existed, it’s done little to further its single mission: Make Jamaica, Queens, a better place to work and live.

The nonprofit’s latest plan is a $25 million project to widen a road and create a public plaza. To do it, GJDC asked the city’s help to evict more than a dozen small businesses and several apartment dwellers — the exact groups the organization is supposed to help.

Carol Radin is fuming over the impending loss of her property at Sutphin Boulevard and Archer Avenue, which includes three apartments, retail shops and office space. She has operated businesses at the corner since 1960.

Greater Jamaica, formed in 1967 to revitalize the struggling Queens business district, has reaped a windfall of public money from its allies, including embattled Rep. Gregory Meeks, but its track record is disputed.

Greater Jamaica ripping off Port Authority

From the NY Post:

Maybe the Port Authority would rather hike tolls than collect the $2.7 million it is rightfully owed from a politically connected nonprofit in Queens.

The PA forked over the taxpayer cash to the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. in 2004 as part of a phantom revitalization effort in downtown Jamaica.

Greater Jamaica, which has ties to Rep. Gregory Meeks, spent the $2.7 million to buy a run-down 6,000-square-foot building that housed a grocery store.

The nonprofit’s grand plan was to have a developer tear down the building and another next to it and replace them with a gleaming office tower that would house JetBlue airlines or other corporate tenants. The site — dubbed JFK Corporate Square — is next to the AirTrain connection to Kennedy Airport.

But eight years later, there is no corporate tower and very little to show for the investment. JetBlue decided to build a headquarters in Long Island City.
Under the terms of the 2004 deal with the nonprofit, the PA was supposed to get its money back or take ownership of the building if no development took place by the end of 2008.

Instead, Greater Jamaica sank at least $20,000 into renovating the property and uses it as an occasional meeting room.