Development in downtown Jamaica, Queens has exploded. There are dozens of projects under construction, and a few, new completed projects. Having received my second dose of vaccine and being mostly recovered from having dislocated and fractured my right elbow in January while walking the obstreperous Sir Toby Belch, Australian Cattle Dob, I hit the road (the Grand Central Parkway) and took a driving tour of the Downtown. The amount of activity going on is simply amazing – unlike anything I might have anticipated.

            One of the things I learned in working in Bryant Park is that success is difficult to manage and control – what Jim Collins calls “the Flywheel Effect,” the increasing acceleration of a virtuous cycle. This phenomenon is evident in Jamacia. There are hotels being developed in a scattered range of sites – including in the middle of otherwise residential blocks. Subsidized housing developments that attempt to maximize the amount of developable space on their lots are huge. Designs generally tend to the lowest common denominators. 

            The most important and interesting question is “Has the neighborhood improved?” This can be interpreted in a number of ways. Is the quality of life for pre-existing residents better? Have new housing opportunities improved the quality of life for those new residents? Is the impact on all city residents and visitors generally better? In the middle of all this change, a definitive answer is impossible. But to my eye, the immediate answer is that the changes to Jamaica have been more of the same. Street conditions are worse. The perception of a pleasant experience in public spaces is worse. This may improve as construction is completed and more people move into the Downtown. But right now, in March 2021, the streets and sidewalks appear to be chaotic. Most of the retail facades are in worse shape than they were five years ago. Pedestrians are walking to swiftly to get where they are going – there isn’t my lingering in public spaces. Admittedly, my visit was on a grey, drizzly Palm Sunday. But my experience of Jamaica over fifteen years, I think gives me a broad enough basis of comparison under a range of conditions to draw reasonable conclusions. 

First the good news:

• Retail storefronts appear to have a low vacancy rate. While the retail mix hasn’t changed that much, new similar retailers have filled in where previous tenants have left. Both of the restaurant major failures have been replaced with new brands. 
• ParkHill City, developed by The Chetrit Group, at the former site of Mary Immaculate Hospital on King Park is a triumph (http://hillwest.com/project/89th-avenue/). Kudos to all concerned. And we, at Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, were afraid of the hospital being converted to a homeless shelter when the property was sold in bankruptcy by the State Dormitory Authority around 2010. The project is market rate and received no government subsidy (in fact the real property taxes on the site when it was no longer exempt as result of hospital ownership were punishing as a result of its long being off the tax rolls). The adaptive reuse of the original hospital structure on the east side of the site is brilliant and beautiful. The landscaping around the project is all imaginative, includes seating and is being well-maintained. 
• Target has just opened a store in United American Land’s project at 160^th Street and Jamacia Avenue, joining Burlington Coat Factory, H&M and Chipotle, in what was formerly a derelict property owned by the Stark Estate. 
• UAL has also done a beautiful job restoring the façade of the formerly abandoned historic Jamaica Savings Bank building. Signs in the windows say that a Jolly Bee is slated for tenancy in the storefront (unfortunately, UAL needs to pay a bit more attention to the other facades in its assemblage, which don’t look as well tended). 
• Thousands of desperately needed new affordable units are being created across the downtown in more than a half dozen major projects. More appear to be in the pipeline. 

And the rest:

• Because we were looking to induce commercial development around the station area, the sites there were over-zoned. The project at Archer and Sutphin overwhelms the site. It is massive and intimidating. The 94^th Avenue corridor, east of Sutphin, is a narrow canyon between two oversized developments. The site on the southeast corner of 94^th and Sutphin remains vacant. The site was cleared using City funds in the mid 00’s. Most likely it has not been developed because the owner is seeking the maximum return from its hundreds of thousands of buildable square feet – and a project of that scale is neither desirable nor economic. 
• The design of the major projects is oppressive. The project at Sutphin and Archer looks like a gigantic prison, in part because of the ratio of glazing to brick and in part because of the materials used. The project on 168^th Street between Jamaica and Archer Avenues looks like something from a Leni Riefenstahl film from German in the 30’s – huge, square, relentless. That site was owned by the City (it was a decrepit police garage) and was deaccessioned by the Economic Development Corporation. One would like to think a more humane, urbanistic design would have been implemented. But such was not to be. 
• Hotels are being developed higgly piggly on smallish sites all over the downtown, many in places that require a walk from transportation. Two hotels are at Liberty Avenue and Sutphin Boulevard, an automobile-oriented location, a desolate ten minute walk from the transit center with no nearby amenities. 
• The largest hotel development, on Archer Avenue between 165^th Street and Sutphin, which has been in development for fifteen years and still has not been completed, is undistinguished in design and relates poorly to the street.
• The hotel site at 94^th Street and Sutphin shows no sign of activity. This very expensively assembled, and troubled site was transferred to a developer in 2015.
• None of the new downtown projects are urbanistic at the street level. They don’t have contiguous ground floor retail and are generally dead to the street. There isn’t any sense of “neighborhood” associated with any of the residential projects, other than at Park Hill City.
• Placemaking activity appears to have stopped and the results appear to me to be obvious. The horticultural program appears to be dormant (which is worse than not having one). There were cars parked routinely on all of the 165^thStreet Mall. Scores of private vehicles of police officers were illegally parked around the 103^rd police precinct. The Q44 Select Bus Service infrastructure appears to be abandoned. 
• The optimistically named and ill-conceived “Shops at Station Plaza,” in the LIRR Sutphin Boulevard underpass seems neglected. It has one storefront that has never been rented. The Dunkin Doughnuts store had a badly broken window. The elaborate multi-colored lighting schemes appears not to be maintained. 

It’s clear that after decades of stagnation, major investment in housing and hotels has finally arrived in Jamaica. With more people living in and visiting downtown, perhaps demand for wider range of retail offerings, including restaurants and bars, and improved conditions in public space will follow. 

PHOTOS FROM MY TOUR FOLLOW:

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