By Courtney Dentch
Builders around the country have been creating mixed use developments, featuring a variety of commercial and residential components, around transportation lines in major cities, Tom Justin, executive vice president of the Weitzman Group told a meeting of the Greater Jamaica Development Corp.
The Weitzman Group is a consulting firm that specializes in real estate advisory reports and the Manhattan-based organization is compiling a study on housing in Jamaica for Greater Jamaica, said Carlisle Towery, president of the business group.
Now that the AirTrain has joined the Long Island Rail Road and bus and subway lines in Jamaica, the area would be ideal for this type of project, he said.
“These are very good times for our urban cores in the United States,” Justin said. “This is a very good time for the outlook for downtown Jamaica.”
Justin was the featured speaker at Greater Jamaica's annual membership meeting May 19 at the AirTrain station in Jamaica. The members also welcomed David Kotheimer of HSBC Bank as the new chairman. Kotheimer, who has been a Greater Jamaica member for more than 10 years, takes the reins from Tazewell Smith.
“Our direction is clearly correct,” Kotheimer said. “Our priorities are on target to develop our vision of downtown Jamaica as a destination where we can serve and further Jamaica and its citizenry.”
Since the AirTrain, the rail link between downtown Jamaica and Kennedy Airport that was a longtime Greater Jamaica priority, opened in December, the southeast Queens business group has been working to create an airport village around the station at Sutphin Boulevard and 94th Avenue. This village, dubbed JFK Corporate Square, would provide office, conference, hotel and retail space for aviation-related industries that do not need to be located at the airport.
This type of project would fit nicely into the mixed-use development craze going on now, Justin said. Mixed-use means there are at least three revenue sources – including housing, retail, or office space – in one location, he said.
Developers are creating these complexes around urban transit hubs to cater to a growing group of people, such as retired empty-nesters and young professionals who are returning to the city and staying there longer, Justin said.
“People are fed up with commuting,” he said. “We want to be close to the culture and the economy and the retail environment within that urban base.”
And with Jamaica offering four different transportation options, including 430 Long Island Rail Road trains, 620 subway trains and 1,000 buses daily as well as the AirTrain, the downtown area would be ideal for development, Justin said.
“The fact that it is intermodal makes for the best opportunity for Jamaica,” he said. “It distinguishes this from other rail cores because they don't have those intermodal connections.”
But there are a number of challenges as well, Justin said. Mixed-use projects take years to plan and build, and finding long-term and stable financing for the work can be difficult, he said. It would require high front-end costs, and it could be a long time before the complex stabilizes and brings in revenues, he said.
Jamaica also has its own unique challenges. There is a concern that Jamaica could be forgotten if the AirTrain is converted into a one-seat ride from the airport into Lower Manhattan as planned, Towery said. Now, passengers must transfer in Jamaica to get into the city, but a state plan to run trains from the AirTrain station through Brooklyn would change that within 10 years.
In addition, the city has not made Jamaica as high a priority as Greater Jamaica would like it to be, Towery said.
“There is a lot to be done with the private and public sectors to realize this,” he said.
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
