LDCs With TLC | 1| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

Vigilantly Monitoring Our Local Growth

The LDC’s partner, the BID, can be found throughout Queens. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen

By Lee Landor

As Queens’ diversity becomes more vibrant and dynamic, its business are growing and developing with the changes, taking residents and communities for the ride. With the assistance of Local Development Corporations, which are located all throughout Queens, the economy is budding rapidly, launching the borough for eminent status.

A Greater Jamaica

Jamaica was devoured by shopping malls in the late 1960s, according to Greater Jamaica Development Corporation President Carlisle Towery. This took away from the area’s independent retailers and hid its potential as a successful commercial center. After a group of local business leaders formed the GJDC in 1967 and Towery became its president in 1971, the area’s promise became visible and warranted evaluation.

The GJDC decided it needed to have a consensus among residents – businesses and those who would be affected by changes, as well as public and private investors – to boost its plans. Once it acquired that support, the not-for-profit organization dramatically changed the Jamaica area with several milestone projects, including the 200-unit Yorkside Towers, the Jamaica Multiplex Cinema, revamping two court houses, opening the Jamaica Center For Arts and Learning, building York College and constructing the AirTrain.

Towery said that because urban economic development is complex and requires government assistance, the process of modifying the existing neighborhood is time consuming and the GJDC’s biggest challenge. But, the corporation has the will and capacity to stay involved in the transformation of Jamaica by sponsoring events, supporting programs and facilitating others, said Towery.

“Our passion is Jamaica’s potential,” he said, adding that the GJDC’s planning and facilitating has allowed for growth and development of the area, which brought with it a crucial necessity – employment.

The GJDC is currently planning several projects, including Jamaica First, which would create a comprehensive public parking system, and Jamaica Pathways, which would include beautification and improvements of public sidewalks along Sutphin Boulevard.

Another costly project is the $85 million redevelopment of area near the Air Train. According to Towery, the GJDC is working with government agencies to conceptualize and get zoning for a mixed-use community where airport-related activities and residents would assemble. The area has “special potential,” Towery said, to hold a hotel and residential, office and retail space.

On the West Side

The Greater Jamaica Development Corp. honors local business leaders.

As in Jamaica, the Local Development Corporation in Long Island City is preparing its businesses for change by supplying them with advice, constituent service and networking, according to Dan Miner, the Long Island City Business Development Corporation senior vice president of business services.

According to Miner, the LICBDC, like all other Local Development Corporations, has two main missions – supporting area businesses, which includes getting them involved with the services that the city and state provide, and encouraging economic development.

“We provide a conduit for information for the local business community,” said Miner. The LICBDC specializes in creating networks within which business can meet and develop relationships, said Miner, and connects them with the correct government agencies they need.

With regular networking and educational events, the LICBDC is working to produce an environment of partnership in Long Island City. Connecting businesses to government agencies and to each other is producing a vivacious and more profitable business community in Queens, Miner said. Linking these businesses is keeping money and employment in the communities and providing opportunities for new businesses to join the area, he said. It also allows the businesses to take advantage of government assistance already appropriated for their use.

For the last 25 years, the eight-person LICBDC has helped accommodate the changing atmosphere of Long Island City as it turned from a national center of industry and heavy manufacturing into the greatly varied place is it today. Now, mixing industry with commercial business, Long Island City offers an assortment of services to residents all over the city.

Trading Up

Unlike Long Island City, College Point was once a quiet, homey place where everyone knew each other’s name, according to College Point Board of Trade President Fred Mazzarello. Over the years, though, it has developed in a corporate world with industrial plants, office buildings and giant stores.

Despite the congested roads and poor flow of traffic, College Point hasn’t suffered terribly from this change, said Mazzarello,but it does miss its charm. Luckily for the locals, the 37-year-old Board of Trade is working to improve the traffic and beautify the neighborhood while it promotes the prosperity of local businesses. “We are heavily involved in our community,” said Mazzarello, stressing the importance of communication between businesses and local residents.

Local officials and LICBDC members gather to introduce the LICBID. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen

The Board of Trade, which presently has more than 200 members, has spent many years developing and bettering its communities, as with the Flushing Bay Dredging project, which began in 1982. The importance outweighing the difficulty, the Board of Trade continues to slowly walk through the federal assistance process to provide its community with a more a pleasant atmosphere, said Mazzarello.

In order to gain back some of its history, the CPBT is improving the look of the area by refurbishing the exterior of houses and business on College Point Boulevard, restoring the facades of the buildings on the boulevard to bring back that “quaint village look” of which Mazzarello and his neighbors are so fond.

Though the project will be costly and time cons uming, it is needed to bring more people to the area and lift the economy there, Mazzarello said. Decorative lights have also been installed in the last year to brighten up the neighborhoods and make them more inviting, according to Mazzarello.

Ever changing and continuously growing, Queens earned itself a reputation as the most diverse spot on Earth. The borough is also rapidly becoming an economic center, and its local development corporations are ensuring that its growth will be sensible, with positive effects on the neighborhoods they serve.