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The Real Deal
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May 25, 2006
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| On retail front,Queens isn’t royalty |
| But the borough’s larger retail options are growing |
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| Marc Ferris |
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About 2.2 million people live in Queens, but that doesn't mean the borough meets all
their shopping needs. The city's biggest borough by area has a handful of
concentrated commercial cores, and most residents are largely served by mom and
pop shops along major boulevards, modest strip malls, and a few big-box outlets.
However, the advent of several ambitious new projects promises to bring change.
One hint that the borough is ripe for a retail overhaul is the recent expansion of the
Queens Center Mall in Rego Park, which went from 600,000 square feet to over a
million square feet and is still the largest-grossing mall in the country.
Queens has also attracted several big-box stores in recent years, including six Home Depot outlets. But space for these projects is
largely next to highways or along the relatively few subway lines that crisscross Queens' 109 square miles, about 35 percent of the
city's territory.
"The Costcos of the world want to be there, but assembling a six-plus acre site in an area that is properly zoned is the tough part,"
said John Cicero, managing principal at Miller Cicero, a commercial appraisal firm. Special permits are also required, he said.
Despite the demand, community opposition also curtails the spread of big-box stores. Residents in Fresh Meadows opposed a
Pathmark, for instance, and Wal-Mart's overtures in Queens galvanized resistance, said Michael McGaddye, director of
neighborhood development at the Queens Economic Development Corporation.
Civic groups also fought against a proposed big-box store at the Elmhurst Gas Tanks site in Maspeth, prompting the Bloomberg
administration to intervene. But big dreams die hard.
Vornado Realty Trust plans to turn the proposed Wal-Mart site, near the Queens Center Mall on busy Queens Boulevard, into
Rego Park Center, which will include 343,000 square feet of retail. Vornado pulled the plug on Wal-Mart in early 2005, following
community opposition to the retailer opening its first store in the city.
On a smaller retail scale, banks represent one new trend transforming corner lots in neighborhood retail clusters, said Tom
Donovan, managing partner at Massey Knakal Realty Services in Queens.
National drug store chains have reached the saturation point, said Donovan. "Now, landlords find that banks afford fewer
management headaches," he said, "so it's easy to just sign a five-year lease and not worry about the property."
Marking the most dramatic transformation, traditional retail hubs in Queens are attracting new large-scale developments, mostly in
abandoned industrial centers.
Near the Flushing River, at the intersection of College Point Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, Muss Development Co. is
constructing the Flushing Town Center, a $600 million, 3.2-million-square-foot complex. Plans call for 1,000 residential units and
750,000 square feet of retail, designed to attract big-box stores with 20-foot floor-to-floor ceilings.
Meanwhile, on a five-acre site occupied by a municipal parking garage in downtown Flushing, Rockefeller Development
Corporation and TDC Development and Construction won an RFP bidding process from the city to build Flushing Commons. Plans
for the $500 million project include a hotel, 500 residential units, 350,000 square feet of retail, a community center, and a
recreation facility.
In Glendale, the Shops at Atlas Park represent an ambitious attempt to transform a decaying industrial park into a thriving retail
and lifestyle center. Though not every expert expressed optimism toward the project's prospects, since it is located in a remote
neighborhood served only by bus lines, Donovan at Massey Knakal argues that the development will serve as a "win-win" prospect
for the neighborhood.
"Shoppers won't have to go to Roosevelt Field Mall, and it will lead to a ripple effect, where underused properties surrounding the
park, like old plumbing stores and buildings with small business offices, will start putting retail on the ground floors," he said.
Atlantic Avenue from Woodhaven to Jamaica, along with Myrtle Avenue between Glendale and Ridgewood, will probably attract
more upscale retail, Donovan said.
In gritty Long Island City, around 50 residential projects are planned, some of which include retail components. The most ambitious
is the $2.3 billion Queens West development, rising on the banks of the East River, which includes a limited retail component.
Silvercup Studios recently announced plans to build a residential enclave on a six-acre site in the shadow of the Queensboro
Bridge. In Queens Plaza, an area crisscrossed by several subway lines, the city is also planning to tear down a parking garage and
to preside over the area's transformation.
"Even though developers are putting residential before retail, new stores are eventually going to have to come," said McGaddye.
Well-served by mass transit, one of the borough's traditional shopping hubs, downtown Jamaica, has experienced an explosion of
growth after the completion of new federal government offices and state courthouses. On weekends, tourists from out of state take
shopping bus jaunts and the sidewalks bustle during warm weather.
Though the borough can absorb larger retail centers, residents express some resistance to change. Queens' bustling immigrant
population might also not find all of what they are looking for at chain-dominated malls.
"With neighborhoods in constant flux, there is great demand for goods from the homeland," said McGaddye. "Small retail corridors
will cater to residents who can't find what they want in the national chains and who don't want to wait in line at the mega-mall."
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