Jamaica Avenue
The downmarket, low-rise commercial corridor around Jamaica Avenue has seen changes lately. Now that the City Council has overwhelmingly approved the Bloomberg administration's massive rezoning of Jamaica, Queens, it is expected to change even more.
The council, by a 45-3 vote yesterday, approved the biggest rezoning in city history, allowing new office, retail and hotel developments on 368 blocks. New buildings can be up to 29 stories high around the AirTrain area in downtown Jamaica.
A busy stretch by day, Jamaica Avenue is sleepy at night, when most of its small shops close. The rezoning is designed to enliven Jamaica's center, once the city's fourth largest shopping district, with more office workers and residents, who could support more retail.
The plan is part of the Bloomberg administration's land-use strategy, outlined in its 2001 "Group of 35" report, which calls for creating thriving, around-the-clock mixed-use centers in all five boroughs through rezoning.
The rezoning capitalizes on the area's transportation infrastructure and proximity to the JFK AirTrain station and calls for an AirTrain village with 3,600 housing units. City planners project the Jamaica rezoning will spur 5,200 new housing units and 3 million square feet of commercial space, along with 9,500 jobs.
Developers "are trying to snap up properties, both commercial and residential" in central Jamaica, said Brian Sarath, managing director of Massey Knakal.
Sarath is selling three lots that could be mixed-use. They range from $55 per square foot in the area between Jamaica and Hillside avenues to $85 per foot for prime sites. Hillside Avenue buildings can now go as high as four to six stories.
Sarath said retail rents top out at $180 per square foot on the Jamaica Avenue corridor, between Sutphin Boulevard and 170th Street.
A big box store finally came to Jamaica this spring. The Home Depot that opened April 12 could be a harbinger of things to come, said Sarath, whose firm brokered the $75 million deal that brought in the store.
"You go there at noon on any day of the week and it's packed," Sarath said of Jamaica Avenue. "More and more big-box retailers are going to go there, which is good for the underserved."
Stores that arrived over the past five years include Old Navy, Radio Shack, jewelry store Zales, Foot Locker, Athletes Foot, Bank of America and Washington Mutual Bank.
Jamaica especially needs businesses that will stay open after dark, Sarath said.
"If you walk around Jamaica at night, it kind of shuts down," Sarath said. "More nightlife and restaurants would keep people in the area. If I look for a place to live, I want places that have things to do after 8 o'clock besides the movie theater."
Roy Chipkin, a CB Richard Ellis Real Estate Service vice president in Jamaica, said he hoped the neighborhood would draw residents and businesses from Manhattan.
"The growth of the residential and the retail markets will spur more commercial activity," he said.
The plan also downzoned 161 blocks of the surrounding neighborhoods of South Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans and the southern edges of Jamaica Hill and Jamaica Estates.
By Marisa Torrieri