Jamaica, Queens is now experiencing dramatic change. It was for literally centuries the civic, transportation and commercial center of Long Island. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s that began to change, as businesses and white families began to move out of the Downtown and further east on the Island – in the same pattern that economically decimated so many American downtowns in an arc that runs from St. Louis to Hartford. Downtown Jamaica, home to the first supermarket and the first Macy’s store outside Manhattan, lost its three department stores, its daily newspaper and its three local banks all within a decade.
What was left was a rich physical and social infrastructure. Jamaica was an early rail center, and remained the home to the Long Island Railroad’s main transfer station. As a result it was the center of the Queens County bus network, with scores of lines passing through or terminating there. The Downtown was also served by three subway lines – two of which were elevated as they arrived in Jamaica. Nearby, was the JFK International Airport. It was the home of the Queens Supreme and Family Courts, as well as the central library for the huge Queens Library system. Demographically, it had become one of the largest communities of African-American (largely middle-class) homeowners in the country.
But for decades, despite hundreds of millions of dollars of government investment in moving the elevated subway line underground, in streetscape improvements, in the construction of York College (a senior college of the City University System) new Family and Civil Court Facilities, and hundreds thousands of square feet of Federal offices for the Social Security Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, Downtown Jamaica maintained a reputation for a lack of public safety and resisted new private investment. Those public investments seemed to have very limited secondary economic effects.
The mile long retail corridor of Jamaica Avenue now reflects a retailing environment similar to those that long existed on the Fulton Mall in Brooklyn, the Third Avenue Hub in the Bronx, and 14th, 34th and 125th Streets in Manhattan – with many of the same retailers and property owners – featuring discount stores and mostly regional chains. Downtown Jamaica has few sit-down restaurants, only recently gained an operating movie theater, has no department store and only a few high-quality national retailers.
700 Unit Mixed-Use Cleared Site
Mixed-Use Project with 700 Units of Mixed-Income Housing
250 Room Hilton Garden Inn Under Development
This is all about to change. In construction right now are a 700 unit mixed-used, mixed-income project at the 100% corner of Sutphin Boulevard and Archer Avenue. Nearby, in the area of the LIRR Jamaica Station, under construction are a 300-room Marriott hotel, a smaller limited service hotel being built by the owner of several other similar hotels in Jamaica, and a 130-unit mixed-income affordable housing project. A 250-room Hilton hotel is securing a demolition permit, and a half-dozen other hotels are in various stages of planning nearby.
Jamaica Avenue Mid-box Retail Project
Former Mary Immaculate Hospital Site Being Developed into Market Rate Housing
Elsewhere in the Downtown a 120,000 square foot mid-box retail center is well into construction behind a landmarked façade. At the site of a former hospital, 324 market rate apartments are being built as part of a 300,000 square foot project that is reusing some of the old hospital structure. There is additional talk of several other projects, including 300 more market-rate units. All of this work began within the last six months.
What changed?
The essential elements were a concerted effort to improve the perception of the Downtown led by the local development corporation, in part through place-making strategies, as well as that LDC’s own site assembly and development efforts. Zoning changes enacted by the City in 2007 to increase density in the station area enabled much development – but the most powerful instrument in New York City’s usual development promotion toolbox – City-owned property – was almost non-existent in this community.
Forty years ago when the Downtown’s LDC, Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC) was founded, not-for-profit’s were seen as an essential partner to government in improving local commercial conditions. I’ve noticed in recent trips to Buffalo (about which I hope to write soon) and Cincinnati not-for-profit LDCs, in partnership with local government, have been the principal drivers of downtown economic revitalization. However, over my twenty-five years of involvement in downtown revitalization and public space improvement I have seen something of a change in this view in New York City. But in my experience (admittedly all on the private side), there remains a vital role for private, non-governmental entities to play – and risk is at the center of this. Risks of all kinds are of great concern to both elected and appointed public officials. A failed project can be career ending for either – particularly in the take-no-prisoners gotcha world of tabloid journalism in which the public sector operates in New York. LDCs and BIDs are well positioned to take such risks, to fall on their swords if projects don’t work out and provide distance for government from the failure. I would argue that in my experience without taking on risk, it is impossible to make real social and economic change in distressed downtowns and public spaces.
Of course such risks must be carefully calibrated by the NFPs, and good management can minimize the negative impact of projects that don’t work out. In my experience, where risks have been properly assessed, any damage caused by failure can be fully and quickly remediated.
NFPs have other process related benefits in driving urban revitalization. They can make decisions quickly, with minimal levels of approval required and without cumbersome restrictions on contracting and personnel hiring. They can borrow money from banks (as well as using conventional public finance vehicles). They can reinvest operating surpluses back into new mission-related projects. Also, the decision-making is closer to the ground – a properly governed NFP has a board of local stakeholders who are more in touch with community needs than centralized government officials – particularly in a place as large as New York City. But high quality governance, including complete financial transparency, is absolutely essential – and is the “price of admission” for this kind of flexibility.
GJDC’s role in catalyzing improved conditions in Jamaica was essential. Over 20 years it purchased and improved disinvested properties (including parking facilities), as well as assembled key sites for development. It worked to improve the perception of outsiders of the neighborhood through placemaking strategies. These included establishing three BIDs (two of them, among the first in the city); creating its own security and horticultural improvement programs (which the BIDs themselves do not have the capacity to provide). GJDC created and maintained a robust and effective retail attraction and retention program. From its very early days, GJDC saw the arts and artists as an important part of downtown renewal. In not only programmed arts events for the Downtown, but it adaptively reused an abandoned City structure into a community arts center and an abandoned church into a performing arts facility. GJDC provided low-cost space for artists for gallery and studio space as well as providing low-cost space for rehearsing and creating theatre and music works. It pushed to ensure that programming in public space was a regular part of the pulse of the Downtown, rather than an occasional event.
There is much more for local NFPs to do in order to “nudge” downtown redevelopment in a positive direction. GJDC became much more effective as it de-emphasized a top-down master-planned approach to securing government facilities and attracting office towers and tenants that the market was clearly resisting; and instead it encouraged the nascent market forces for housing, larger format retail and hotel rooms. The City’s Department of Transportation is now studying Jamaica Avenue. Securing the Federal funds that will be required to implement the results of this endeavor should be a high priority. This will be a very demanding project. While the pedestrian experience on Jamaica Avenue needs dramatic improvement (more space, shade, seating), traffic at key intersections has become impossible and bus speeds are snail-like. The allocation of space between pedestrians, cars (both moving and parked) and buses needs to be rethought and the NFPs can play an important role in making this successful.
GJDC the BIDs and other community-based organizations need to continue to create opportunities to take advantage of the low-cost space in the community for artists in order to encourage a lively, attractive scene in the Downtown. The NFPs have a role in encouraging high quality design as development picks up its pace. Importantly, they can be an advocate for making sure that the social and cultural elements that make this a distinctive community aren’t lost as development proceeds. Jamaica has the potential to become an attractive, vibrant, affordable, unique community of African-American, Caribbean, Central American, South Asian and other residents – and a national model.