: Reshaping Willets Point: Chamber’s Plan Would Eliminate Iron Triangle

Convention Center in Queens

One of those plans for Willets Point was made public last week when the Queens Chamber of Commerce unveiled plans for a 300,000-square-foot exposition/conference center, complete with its own 400-room hotel. The Chamber’s plan encompasses the east side of Flushing Creek all the way to Corona, and from Flushing Bay to the southern end of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The chamber hopes to link Willets Point to the densely packed communities surrounding the area: downtown Flushing’s Main Street to the east and
Jackson Heights’ Roosevelt Avenue to the west.

The chamber’s plan would tap into these two cultural, economic and transportation thoroughfares. That would allow money, people and development to flow from sari shops on 74th Street to Chinese restaurants on Prince Street.

“Currently, Queens has a gaping discontinuity in the heart of its most populous region,” the Chamber wrote in a pamphlet announcing the group’s vision for Willets Point.

The expo/conference center and hotel facility would be 3 to 5 million square feet in potential size, running along the north side of the No. 7 subway line and bending northeast along the west side of Flushing Creek. Although “the entire site should be fed from the transit hub,” it hopes to increase parking at Willets Point from 9,000 cars to 14,000. In all, the Chamber said developing Willets Point is “about filling a hole at the center of Queens.”

“Over the years, we have commissioned two separate studies, which have come back and it says there is a demand for an expo center,” said architect and Chamber member Charles Lauster. That demand is also present on Manhattan’s West Side, where Bloomberg and others want to expand the Jacob Javits Convention Center and build an Olympic stadium that would double as the football stadium for the Jets. The Willets Point expo center would not compete with Javits, Lauster said.

Connecting Flushing and Corona with the convention center in between would provide overall development that is good for the quality of life and good for business. “Really, this is the last frontier for any development in the county,” Lauster said.

A decision on which plan is to picked is not likely to be made soon. A similar bidding process for Flushing’s Municipal Lot 1 has gone on for more than a year. Although each of the development plans is unique, they all have one thing in common: they require displacing the businesses and culture that have come to define the Iron Triangle.

“The area has to be cleaned up,” Lauster said. “But one of the advantages of this kind of project [is that it] doesn’t require clean-up as if you were building residential houses.” Without getting into specifics, Lauster added, “From an environmental point of view, it’s a bad site.”

Staying in the Triangle

Willets Point is unsightly, maybe even unhealthy, but that hasn’t stopped businesses from flourishing there.

Melvin Lorenzana runs Tolima’s Auto Repair Shop, one of the many auto businesses that would have to be relocated. He said his business has been successful for the past six years because he was able to establish a steady clientele, something that would be difficult to do if he
were moved out.

Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Daniel Doctoroff said that businesses currently in Willets Point would have to be relocated. It may be too early for city officials to say where people like Lorenzana should move, but for him, the time to find a new home for his business is now.

Alternate sites for his business include Northern Boulevard and Astoria Boulevard. The problem, he said, is rent. According to Lorenzana, landlords are asking for $6,000 and $7,000 per month. Without saying how much he pays to stay in the Iron Triangle, Lorenzana simply said, “trying to find another place is hard.” Despite its appearance and lack of amenities, Lorenzana and other auto repairmen have carved out a living for themselves in an area most people can barely drive through.

Looking out onto the cratered earth and junkyard atmosphere, Lorenzana said it is the current inhabitants of the area who are to blame for the Triangle’s condition. Although he doesn’t see “that much” illegal activity, he does see things that need to change. “They don’t care
enough to keep this place clean, especially the guys who do tires. They like to throw the tires outside.”

Even this hint of responsibility does little for those who want to stay and improve the Triangle.

“I would be willing to spend [money] on this building if I were able to buy it. Nobody wants to build and nobody wants to sell, all we hear is that we are going to get kicked out,” said Lorenzana.

“A Lot of Talk Around Here”

Situated with dozens of competitors within feet of his business, Lorenzana said he doesn’t want to relocate, which is contrary to the message he is already getting from city agencies. Though he has not been told outright to move, “there’s a lot of talk around here,” he said.

Whether the message to relocate is being sent implicitly or not, he is finding out through other means that the city no longer wants him there. He has been issued tickets and summonses that he says tell him that his business is no longer welcome in the area. “There’s always somebody trying to bring you down, the police, [Department of Environmental Protection], anything and everything they could possibly find,” he said.

With Lorenzana’s future in the hands of the EDC, the Chamber’s Lauster said relocation would be the only option for businesses like Lorenzana’s. “It’s not that these people should be put out of business, especially legitimate people, but they could be relocated. There are other places to function,” Lauster added.

“We Are All Anxious”
The Chamber submitted its plan April 8 and will be in competition with at least 14 others, according to Chamber president Raymond Irrera.

As for his competitors, Irrera said, “We are all anxious to see what they are.”

Joseph Farber from the Chamber said his group’s large-scale proposal will, hopefully “get the city to raise the bar, to essentially be more ambitious in what they expect to have happen here.” He said the City’s Economic Development Corporation “needs to do something that makes a significant difference to Flushing, Corona and to Queens. And if they do that, it is going to make a significant difference to all of New York.”

Unlike the sports and convention center on Manhattan’s West Side, proposals for Willets Point are being considered, so far, only on their renderings and goals, not funding mechanisms, Farber said.

Farber said he expects the EDC to accept a plan by the end of this year. “This is actually an exciting time for planning in New York. People are much more imaginative and creative than they had been decades before.”