City Council member Daniel Dromm and the Jackson Heights pedestrian plaza

Jackson Heights businesses are slamming a pedestrian plaza the Department of Transportation commissioned on a main thoroughfare, the Wall Street Journal reported. The plaza, along 37th Road between 73rd and 74th streets, blocks off traffic to a once-bustling South Asian business hub in Queens.

Shop owners claim the area has become dead, that business has declined 60 percent and that they’ve had to lay off workers as a result. [more]

Itzhaki Properties agent Ami Efrati and 96-02 37th Avenue (building credit: PropertyShark)

Long Island-based Benedict Realty Group closed on one of the largest building transactions in Queens this year last week, purchasing a mixed-use building in Jackson Heights for $14 million, according to Ami Efrati of Itzhaki Properties, who represented the buyer in the deal. Itzhaki’s Leonid Mizukovski represented the seller.

The 79,336-square-foot building at 96-02 37th Avenue on the corner of Junction Boulevard has 76 residential units, nine retail spaces and one office space within one block of the Junction Boulevard stop on the 7 subway train.

“The location is crucial — people pay more to live closer to transportation,” Efrati said. “It’s also a very stable neighborhood; Jackson Heights is very working class.” [more]

A city proposal to demolish a neo-Tudor home on 74th Street and 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights to make room for a junior high school has riled preservationists, who say the historic mansion should be preserved, according to the New York Daily News. However, parents support the decision to demolish the home to combat overcrowding in schools.
The mansion was built in 1941 and 1942 and later sold to a Korean church. The church sold the property to a developer who then flipped it to the city.
Peter Mariotti, a retired Revlon executive, tried to buy the home in 2007, but failed. “I would dream of living in that house and I came so close,” he said. “If I did, that house would be the shining star of Jackson Heights.” [more]

Local officials and residents in Jackson Heights held an emergency community meeting Wednesday in an attempt to prevent a 29,000-square-foot athletic field across from Travers Park from being taken over by a private developer, the Wall Street Journal reported. The field, currently owned by the private, cash-strapped Garden School, has long been eyed by the city, as Jackson Heights is among the districts with the least amount of park space per resident. The Department of Parks & Recreation had already put in a $4.8 million offer for the field, which would allow for the school to use it while class is in session, but school trustees rejected it last week to consider higher bids from developers that would be able to put up the cash more quickly. [more]

A half-acre vacant plot of land in Jackson Heights may go to residential developers, despite a long effort to turn the land into a community green space, according to the New York Daily News. The Garden School, a private nursery-through-12th-grade school, had been in negotiations to sell the land to the city, which would then, in turn, use it to expand the adjacent Travers Park. But the school, which said it’s facing dire financial straits due to low enrollment, said the $4.7 million the city offered for 20,000 square feet of the plot is 15-percent lower than offers made by developers. [more]

The historic Eagle Theater in Jackson Heights, Queens could see new life as a bank branch, the Wall Street Journal reported. While the 4,000-square-foot theater had successfully operated as a Bollywood movie house for a dozen years, the Mumbai, India film strike spelled disaster for the business. It’s sat empty for several months and now the leaseholder, Shaukat Ali, is looking for a subtenant who’s willing to pony up the $15,000-a-month rent for the ground floor. The bank branch idea appealed to Ali for obvious reasons:
“I won’t have any problems collecting the rent,” Ali said. [WSJ]

[more]

Both of Jackson Heights’ small movie theaters have closed within the last six months, leaving the neighborhood without a cinema. While some hope the void left in their stead will make way for a newer, more modern theater in the neighborhood, others are concerned that competition with DVD sales and large chain multiplexes will make it difficult for another theater’s entry. The Eagle Theater at 73-07 37th Road, which couldn’t compete with its larger counterparts elsewhere in the city, was supposed to house the film portion of the Jackson Heights Film and Food Festival. It was built in 1939, according to PropertyShark.com. The Triplex at 40-31 82nd Street, an 85-year-old structure that was slated to be the alternative Festival location, shuttered Oct. 20 after failing to pay rent and real estate taxes. Several theater operators are currently eyeing the Triplex location for a new cinema, the Daily News reported. [NYDN]

They may be pricey but the Upper East Side and Upper
West Side are still the most popular places for home buyers to check
out, according to a Post analysis of data from the Real Estate Board of New
York’s Web site. Since Jan. 1, user searches on ResidentialNYC.com show that
the next three most popular areas are the West
Village, Harlem
and Lincoln Square.
Brooklyn’s most popular were Park Slope, Bay Ridge, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Sheepshead Bay
and Prospect Heights. In Queens, the top five were Forest
Hills, Jackson Heights,
Rego Park,
Astoria and
Douglaston/Little Neck. The most popular in the Bronx
were Spuyten Duyvil, Throgs Neck, Riverdale, Parkchester and Jerome Park. Staten
Island’s most popular neighborhoods were Tottenville, Great Kills, Rossville, Arden Heights
and Mariners Park. 

Suburban shoppers with immigrant parents or grandparents are boosting the city’s economy by visiting ethnic retail centers at a growing rate, according to a report published by the Center for an Urban Future, a think tank. Downtown Flushing, Washington Heights, Richmond Hill, Brighton Beach, Midwood and Astoria are all popular ethnic centers. While the number of businesses citywide increased 9.6 percent from 1994 to 2004, the report highlighted several areas that grew faster: Flushing, up 54.6 percent; Sunset Park, up 47.3 percent; Sheepshead Bay-Brighton Beach, up 33.7 percent; and Washington Heights, up 17.8 percent. [more]