Borough President Donovan Richards, joined by several other community leaders, led a walking tour of Jamaica Avenue from Parsons Boulevard to 165th Street to address quality-of-life issues in the rapidly changing downtown area.
During the tour on March 11, business, crime, homelessness, drugs, busways and poor infrastructure were just some of the topics discussed by Richards, fellow elected officials, business owners and other community stakeholders.
Richards said that Downtown Jamaica needs a facelift that may cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
“The pavers got to go, new lighting, paving the boulevard over, planting new trees for clean air, but aesthetically this whole place needs an uplift,” said Richards. “The vacancy rate is 6 percent, because the customer base is so loyal. But imagine how much more of Southeast Queens would shop here if it felt safe, if it felt modern and if the city made a commitment in addressing many of the systemic issues here.”
Richards, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica), Mayor Adams, state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) and new edition Councilwoman Nantasha Williams (D-St. Albans) all grew up in the Jamaica region, said the borough president.
“What we have discussed is putting together a task force,” said Richards. “This can’t just be a one-day tour. We need to meet monthly, not to just talk, but to incentivize the agencies to do some improvements here as well.”
Those agencies will have no shortage of issues to address.
Property owners say that they have trouble trying to lease to quality tenants in Jamaica, according to Jennifer Furioli, the executive director of the Jamaica Center Business Improvement District.
“One of the biggest issues that people are concerned about is the quality of retail here,” said Furioli. “We have property owners who are trying to lease to responsible tenants.”
Mark Lucaj, the property manager of the retail building at 159-02 Jamaica Ave., which includes Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas, said the landowner that he represents missed out on a deal with a national retailer as a tenant.
“They want a safe place to operate,” said Lucaj. “We had a national retailer come in for one of vacant spaces, which was vacant for some time ... they saw someone peeing on the side of the building and said that this is not for us.”
Lucaj said that retailers who come to Jamaica want to see a clean, safe and walkable area.
“You got the traffic at least,” Richards said, as dozens of people walked by the corner of the movie theater.
The building where the movie theater, eateries and other retail outlets reside used to be a parking lot over 20 years ago, Lucaj told the Queens Chronicle.
“The landowner here was one of the first people to invest in this area 20 years ago and saw what Jamaica could be,” said Lucaj. “They built this building and it now it’s a landmark to a certain extent ... People reference the movie theater and say, ‘That building. Got it.’”
Samantha Champagnie, who co-owns the Golden Krust Caribbean Restaurant with her husband, Conrad, at 92-21 Parsons Blvd., said that a man pulled down his pants in front of the place on March 6.
“We had to get him out of the store because he was dealing with a mental health issue,” said Champagnie. “We have people with those issues, but it doesn’t seem like there is any place for them to go.”
Champagnie, Conrad and Beverly Hills Furniture storeowner Leran Ruben also had issues with the new busways that were implemented on Jamaica Avenue, a major shopping corridor.
“These busways have impacted my business,” said Ruben. “It’s decreased foot traffic from more than 50 to 75 percent. Passenger vehicles from Sutphin Boulevard all the way to 168th Street can’t stop by for business.”
Six days after a Queens Chronicle report on placard abuse was released Leran Ruben, one of the business owners who had made complaints about city workers parking in truck-loading docks and busways, which was causing traffic in Jamaica and driving customers away, had a meeting at his store with representatives of the NYPD’s crime lab and the city Department of Transportation on Feb. 16.
“They said they are going to look into the placard abuse and discuss with their employees who were abusing and who wasn’t abusing it,” said Ruben. “What I got out of the meeting, was that only someone who was on active duty is allowed to use their placard, and not just someone coming to work.”
Earlier, Ruben said he noticed most of the placard vehicles seem to belong to members of the NYPD Forensics Laboratory at 150-14 Jamaica Ave., which is near his business, Beverly Hills Furniture, at 149-01 Jamaica Ave.
Ruben was confounded by why employees at the crime lab would park in busways when they have their parking garage at the corner of their building.
“They said only part of the garage was theirs,” said Ruben about the crime lab employees. “Some of the garage belongs to the court, some of it belongs to the Police Department and some of it belongs to the parole officers.”
After sending the story to the Mayor’s Office, Ruben said that he got a call from Deputy Inspector Brian O’Sullivan of the Transportation Bureau.
“He’s a gentleman,” said Ruben. “He said that he was going to make sure that his officers were not abusing plaques over here, but he has no pull over other agencies. He said he will reach out to parole officers and others to see if they could assist in this matter.”
Despite the meeting, not much has changed since, according to Ruben.
“But, when you go outside, I don’t see any improvement,” said the furniture store owner on March 1. “When the placards take up the truck parking and the passenger vehicle parking, trucks don’t get to stop where they need to stop to unload.”
Ruben showed the Queens Chronicle pictures from Feb. 22 of placard vehicles taking up a loading spot, resulting in a truck double-parking in the road and buses going in the opposite lane to get around the delivery driver.
Another truck had to park in the crosswalk to get enough space to deliver goods.
“Nobody is obeying the bus lane, so it’s not even serving its purpose to increase speeds for public transportation,” said Ruben. “Now this is forcing pedestrians to scatter in the streets, which is unsafe.”
With too much traffic plaguing the area and a lack of parking spots for customers, even at metered parking spaces, which were also taken up by placard vehicles, the third-generation entrepreneur has lost 50 to 75 percent of his once-thriving business.
Approximately 90 businesses in Downtown Jamaica are struggling with the same issue.
