One article states that Jamaica is on the development tipping point, while another article states that a project that was to start this year has now been postponed for at least 3-5 years. I don’t think anyone knows what the fuck they are talking about, very similar to how Jamaica’s leaders talk, sideways or out of their ass.
But in terms of tipping, tipping to what, more ghetto shit, more third world crap, what, because all I ever see is shit, shit and more shit. And what about those lovely bottom of the barrel folks that seem to be everywhere in the community fucking it all up.
In the meantime, as far as some of our illustrious leaders, former Senator Malcolm Smith heads to prison for a long time, new Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie tossed Assembly Member William Scarborough off as Chair on the Small Business Committee where this crooked recently arrested asshole made $12,000 annually outside of his Assembly Member salary (something that idiot Comrie thinks is fine), asshole Councilman Ruben Wills was arrested yet again on a whole new set of corruption charges, Senator Leroy Comrie still proves his is a charlatan & do-nothing and I am sure questionable and crooked Rev. Floyd Flake is shaking now that his buddy Smith is heading to a long sentence. I am sure Smith will be giving the dirt on Flake and other ass wipe Jamaica elected officials.
For this time being lets just say JAMAICA SUCKS.
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From The Real Deal:
Jamaica’s development tipping point
Queens’ nabe sees waves of new towers rise as developers grab cheaper land
February 02, 2015
By Rich Bockmann
Stakeholders had high hopes for Downtown Jamaica when the city rezoned 368 blocks in 2007.
The Queens neighborhood had all the makings of a real-estate hotbed at the time: great transportation, retail infrastructure and cultural institutions. It had been largely left behind as other parts of the city gentrified and prospered, and planners thought the 2007 rezoning would finally provide a springboard to boost the neighborhood’s fortunes.
Then came the financial crisis. Southeast Queens became the city’s epicenter for foreclosures, and grand schemes were put on hold.
Yet now developers, including big-time Manhattan players like the Chetrit Group and United American Land, are showing increasing interest in the area. And sources say a few mega-projects in the pipeline may prove to be the real estate tipping point for Jamaica.
“We have received a great deal of interest recently,” said Carlisle Towery, president of the nonprofit Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, which owns a large property portfolio in the area, some of which it’s selling off to developers who have large projects planned.
The real estate market is also starting to heat up in other corners of the neighborhood. In September, Flushing-based developer Chris Jia Shu Xu closed on the purchase of a $22 million site at the corner of Guy R. Brewer Boulevard and Archer Avenue, with roughly 720,000 buildable square feet. The price works out to about $30 per buildable foot. While that’s a far cry from the $200 to $250 per square foot that developers are paying in places like Long Island City, brokers in the area say prices are on the rise.
“Land prices are cheap compared to most of Downtown Brooklyn. They’re cheap compared to Long Island City,” said CPEX Real Estate’s Sean Kelly, who has a listing for a development site in a prime area near the Long Island Rail Road station for $24 million, or roughly $55 to $65 per foot.
“I think that as land prices increase in Brooklyn and the primer parts of Queens, we’ll see them continue to rise here,” he added.
Below is a look some of the projects on Jamaica’s drawing board:
1. The Crossing at Jamaica Station
Midtown-based BRP Development announced plans early last year to build a $225 million, mixed-use building across the street from the Long Island Rail Road station, which will be the largest-ever private investment in the neighborhood.
The double-towered, 730,000-square-foot building will rise on a swath of nearly a dozen properties assembled over several years by the GJDC. The sale to BRP is expected to close this quarter.
The project, slated for completion in mid-2017, will include 584 market-rate and affordable rental units spread over a pair of 15-story and 25-story towers. The taller building will include three stories of retail spanning 80,000 square feet.
BRP said it’s looking at rents in the mid-$30s per square foot, which would put the monthly rent for a 750-square-foot one bedroom at about $2,188. By comparison, the median asking rent in the neighborhood is $1,695, according to the real estate data website StreetEasy.
Duane Reade currently occupies the corner retail at the site and sources say the project’s stakeholders are discussing ways to bring the pharmacy back once construction is complete. BRP said it’s targeting other retail tenants, such as restaurants, grocery stores, banks, apparel- and home-goods providers.
2. Hilton Garden Inn
On the southern end of the LIRR tracks, New Jersey-based Able Management plans to build a 28-story, four-star hotel on another plot of land assembled by the GJDC.
The two announced the land sale in mid-2013, but a legal spat with a partner who owned a stake in one of the properties held things up in the courts. Last month a judge ruled in favor of the GJDC, clearing the way for the nonprofit to sell the site to Able in the first half of this year. Able, which owns and operates hotels on Long Island, is planning a 125,000-square-foot tower with about 240 rooms, bars on the ground floor and roof, a pool and a restaurant.
The hotel will sit directly across from the AirTrain Station, which serves as a connection for passengers traveling between Manhattan and JFK Airport. Able CEO Viral Patel said room rates will range from $179 to $299 per night and that the hotel will be consistent with the other Hilton Garden Inns in the metro area.
3.Norman Towers
Queens-based developer the Bluestone Organization cut the ribbon late last year on a 100-unit, two-building rental project at 90-11 160th Street. Bluestone developed the $32 million affordable-housing project, which is now entirely leased up, with the help of nearly $14 million in city and state subsidies. All of the units in the project’s two buildings — which rose on a block-through site previously owned by the GJDC — are set aside as affordable housing in different pricing tiers. The building has few amenities, and one-bedrooms for tenants earning between roughly $52,000 and $108,000 rented for $1,450 through a city-run housing lottery. “The market in Jamaica for something like this is actually lower” than the most expensive units at Norman Towers, Bluestone partner Ira Lichtiger said. The project also includes about 5,700 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The building has two retail tenants — a restaurant and dentist’s office — and a third space is on the market. Retail rents on the side streets can range from $35 to $45 per square foot.
4. United American Land retail
Jamaica Avenue is the neighborhood’s main retail strip. In the mid-20th century, during its heyday, it was a bustling shopping destination, home to Macy’s, along with the now-defunct Gertz and Gimbels department stores.
Now the nearly mile-long strip is home to national retailers like the Gap, Old Navy and Applebee’s, as well as a mix of electronics and beauty-supply stores.
Major retailers are concentrated east of Parsons Boulevard — the last stop on the E, J and Z subway lines. That’s where Manhattan-based United American Land, headed by developer Al Laboz, paid $20.7 million to assemble a trio of properties in 2012 and 2104. The developer is now combining the three buildings into one and repositioning the properties into approximately 150,000 square feet of retail.
Laboz said Jamaica Avenue is similar to Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn, where the firm brought in tenants such as discount fashion stores H&M and T.J. Maxx.
“Queens is a strong borough and this is the strongest block in Queens in terms of retail,” Laboz said. “Tenants are always looking to get into urban markets, and this is a very strong urban market.”
5. Mary Immaculate Hospital conversion
The Chetrit Group has owned this nearly full-block-sized medical campus overlooking Rufus King Park, Jamaica’s largest green space, since 2009, when it acquired the defunct hospital following a bankruptcy auction.
The roughly 460,000 square feet of space is currently spread across a handful of buildings and a parking garage. The developer has filed plans to convert one of the buildings into a 324-unit residential development. But the project is something of a mystery, even to those steeped in the Jamaica real estate scene.
In late 2013, the city slapped the developer with a stop-work order for having a large pile of debris on the site during demolition and fined the firm $172,980 for other violations. The stop-work order was lifted in early 2014, but the company has yet to restart construction.
Chetrit, which did not respond to requests for comment, is currently involved in a number of high-profile properties around the city, including the conversion of the Sony Building at 550 Madison Avenue into luxury condos.
6. Moda
The Dermot Company was the first developer to bring luxury-style amenities to Jamaica when it opened the 346-unit Moda rental in 2010. The company, headed by William Dickey, had won the right to redevelop the former Queens Family Courthouse on Parsons Boulevard in 2005, through a public request for proposals.
Property records show the company paid $8 million for the plot.
Architecture firm FXFowle designed the 12-story, 400,000-square-foot building, which incorporated the Italian Renaissance-style facade of the courthouse and includes amenities like entertainment rooms, a fitness center, roof deck and concierge service.
The project is entirely leased up, with monthly rents ranging from $1,350 for a studio to $2,000 for a two-bedroom.
“To rent a comparable apartment in the higher-end neighborhoods of Brooklyn or Manhattan, residents would be paying two to three times as much,” Andrew Levison,
director of asset management and operations at Dermot, wrote in an email. “Our goal was to deliver a new Manhattan-quality building in
Jamaica at an affordable price point for the local residents and we think that goal was achieved.”
The building also has more than 50,000 square feet of retail space occupied by Associated Supermarket and the barbecue CityRib, one of the few restaurant/bars in
the neighborhood.
7. Retail mall
Blumenfeld Development Group, the company that built the massive East River Plaza mall in East Harlem, is bringing its retail game to Jamaica. The company is planning to develop a roughly 180,000-square-foot mall at 90-02 168th Street, a side street off Jamaica Avenue. The project, which will include an adjacent 550-plus-space parking garage, is slated to rise on a pair of GJDC-owned parking lots.
8. ACHS Management retail
Manhattan investors and developers Alex Adjmi and Bobby Cayre, known for their extensive New York City retail portfolio, are about three months away from completing a 50,000 square-foot strip mall at 168-50 Jamaica Avenue.
Planet Fitness and discount retailer Family Dollar have both already signed leases, and while the partnership declined to comment on rents, brokers said they can range from roughly $80 to $100 per square foot on Jamaica Avenue.
The partnership paid $2 million in 2008 for a handful of properties that make up the site. The location is toward the far eastern end of the neighborhood’s shopping area, but it could get a boost if Blumenfeld’s retail mall brings more foot traffic that way. TRD
From DNAInfo New York:
Plan to Overhaul Archer Ave. Near AirTrain Station May Take Up to 5 Years
By Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska on February 5, 2015 6:16pm
The city is planning to widen Archer Avenue in order to decrease traffic congestion near the AirTrain station.
DNAinfo/Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska
QUEENS — The city’s plan to widen Archer Avenue and create pedestrian plazas near the AirTrain station in downtown Jamaica, one of the busiest and most congested areas in the neighborhood, could take 5 years to complete after a series of delays, sources said.
The $50 million “Station Plaza” project, which was expected to begin in 2016, will start in 2 to 3 years instead, partially because of delays related to acquiring privately owned property, which needs to be demolished in order to complete the project, according to the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
The project is one of many initiatives planned for the area that have been galvanized by the opening of JFK’s AirTrain in downtown Jamaica in 2003, which helped turn the neighborhood into a major transportation hub.
The plan calls for widening Archer Avenue in order to create broader sidewalks and new turning lanes for buses as well as bus loading areas, according to the city Economic Development Corporation’s website. It also envisions developing public plazas at the intersection with Sutphin Boulvard.
The proposal also seeks to move subway exits, which are currently located on Sutphin Boulevard, from the sidewalks and place them on the planned public plazas instead.
The new plazas would also feature bus shelters and retail kiosks, according to the EDC.
The city is currently in the process of acquiring privately owned property along Archer Avenue. The Archer Avenue post office also has to be relocated, the agency said.
The plan, approved in 2007, is currently in the design phase. Initially, the project was expected to begin in 2016, but the agency said it’s being delayed by issues related to property acquisition and design.
Yvonne Reddick, district manager for Community Board 12, said that “Station Plaza,” once complete, “will certainly enhance the area and we are looking forward to it.”
“Jamaica is a neighborhood with a number of tremendous strengths, including its close proximity to dozens of transit options,” said EDC spokesman Ian Fried.
“The Station Plaza redevelopment will create a safer pedestrian environment and ease traffic congestion, helping to make Jamaica even more accessible for all residents, visitors and commuters.”
In 2012, the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, a local nonprofit working on revitalizing the area, renovated the so-called “Sutphin Underpass,” creating 5,500 square feet of new retail space directly across the street from the AirTrain terminal and the Long Island Rail Road station, according to the EDC’s website.
There are also plans to build a 580-unit apartment complex and a 24-story hotel there.