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College Point Targeted For New Growth

The $60 million shopping center has revitalized the neighborhood. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen

By Michael Rehak

With its 1998 opening of Target, the College Point Shopping Center paved its way over wetlands to become an economic engine in an area that had been empty and isolated for decades.

Located on the northern tip of the borough, the tiny peninsula of College Point had long been considered a gateway to nowhere, where limited access and unmanageable soil often left the territory to small housing and warehouse property. Some 550 city-owned acres had been designated as the College Point Corporate Park and the plan had been, for some time, to develop it for better use.

By now, the city has found most of its promise, yet there is still more to be decided. One of those properties is the former Flushing Airport site. Back in 1929, it was considered the city’s busiest landing strip, but it was soon brought to its demise when nearby LaGuardia and JFK Airports became the premier choice for air travelers.

The area across from where the Flushing Airport once stood on 20th Avenue, has been developed to include big box stores and well known dining franchises. Such amenities in College Point had never existed until the shopping center opened and now residents no longer have to leave their community to find a McDonalds, BJ’s or a Boulder Creek Restaurant. Other franchises include Kids R’ Us, Modell’s and Waldbaum’s.

The College Point Shopping Center was a $60 million project by the Related Co. to build 330,000 square feet of retail space.

The achievement alone of developing over wetlands could be considered a breakthrough for College Point’s commerce, but the shopping center’s high traffic volume is one that can also be seen as an example of success on a daily basis.

With its development, however, the College Point Shopping Center also continues to suffer from its lack of roadway and mass transit access. There are no subway lines that run through College Point and although the Whitestone Expressway offers a 20th Avenue exit, the passageway is often riddled with truck and car traffic that make it difficult to enter the shopping mall. Other access routes include College Point Boulevard and cutting across 14th Avenue, but each of those roads have only one lane per side once a driver enters College Point.

In 2004, the federal government allocated some $700,000 for a 20th Avenue makeover, but many still say roadways continue to be a problem. Plans have also been put on hold to widen 20th Avenue and create additional access due to the debate over residential owners’ property rights.

Now that the shopping center has been in existence for nearly a decade, many politicians and College Point residents fear that more is on the way. With the Flushing Airport site still looming desolate, it’s hard to say if the city won’t again try to develop much of it to coincide with the shopping center.

In 2004, the city had plans to lease the property to a consortium of Korean-owned showrooms and wholesalers, but it was shot down by the community. The city has planned, though, to conserve some 35 acres as a wetlands preserve and reconstruct Linden Place from 23rd to 28th Avenues.