Project seen as another indication of BRP Companies’ growing interest in big projects in the outer boroughs. The building will include 400 apartments and 80,000 square feet of retail space in its base.
BY DANIEL GEIGER
WASHINGTON, D.C. – March 12, 2014 – (RealEstateRama) — The Greater Jamaica Development Corp. announced Friday that it has reached a deal to sell BRP Companies a development site near Jamaica station in Queens where the buyer will build a $225 million residential tower with retail space in its base.
The project is being hailed by Queens officials as the largest private investment in the gritty, eastern Queens neighborhood in decades and a sign of more interest to come in the area directly surrounding the neighborhood’s busy train station, which is the terminus point for two subway lines, a key hub for Long Island Railroad and also the gateway to the Airtrain serving John F. Kennedy Airport.
“This is an exciting day for Jamaica,” Congressman Gregory Meeks, whose district includes Jamaica, said in a statement. “This project further validates downtown Jamaica as a prime location for private investment in transit-oriented development.”
BRP Companies will build a 400-unit rental apartment building with 80,000 square feet of retail space in its base at the corner of Sutphin Boulevard and Archer Avenue, just steps away from the train station. The developer has also pledged that 100 of the apartments it builds will be affordable housing.
The deal was put together by Greater Jamaica Development, a nonprofit that has bought up several parcels in Jamaica in the hopes of assembling them into sites that developers will buy and build on and in the process revive the once prosperous neighborhood.
Carlisle Towery, president of the nonprofit, said that the group spent the past seven years and $8 million putting together the roughly 50,000-square-foot site that BRP Companies is now buying in the deal. Greater Jamaica Development originally began marketing the site two years ago, but couldn’t find any takers. Mr. Towery said that BRP Companies became interested in the parcel when it lost out on a nearby site on Sutphin Boulevard and 94th Avenue. There another development firm, Able Management, won the bid to build a 24-story hotel land that is jointly owned by Greater Jamaica Development and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“BRP first was negotiating for the hotel site but then they indicated an interest in this larger parcel and that’s how the deal came together,” Mr. Towery said. “The development climate has changed, more developers are interested in the boroughs and Jamaica is benefiting from that.”
Greater Jamaica Development has reached deals for other development in the neighborhood. The developer Blumenfeld Development Group is planning to build a $50 million retail project and parking garage near the corner of Jamaica Avenue and 168th Street, about a mile from the train station.
