Downtown Jamaica to see BID consolidation
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A City Council hearing Thursday explored the potential to expand the Sutphin Boulevard Business Improvement District to include 165th Street and Jamaica Center. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
By Rachel Vick
Downtown Jamaica’s businesses are moving closer to more unified advocacy following a City Council hearing on the expansion of the Sutphin Boulevard Business Improvement District.
Appearing before the council’s Committee on Finance, members of the Sutphin BID, 165th Street Mall Special Assessment Districts and the Jamaica Center Special Assessment Districts said they were in support of a plan to merge under one roof to cut down on costs and up efficiency.
Sutphin BID, 165th Street Mall Special Assessment Districts and the Jamaica Center Special Assessment Districts would be combined into the Downtown Jamaica BID under the proposal.
Last summer, JCSAD voted in favor of dissolving itself if the merger of local business advocate groups did not go through, according to a statement from President Michael Hirschhorn. JCSAD claimed the overhead costs were too much to remain open without consolidation.
“We want to nurture a thriving downtown,” he said in a statement read by Executive Director Jennifer Furioli in front of the City Council’s Committee on Finance Thursday. “I see first hand how our organization is severely limited in what it could accomplish.”
With the merger, the area covered by the BID would expand to encompass the 590 storefront spaces under the currently-separate groups, and the streets they are on.
Some of the small business owners in favor of the project spoke to councilmembers Thursday, emphasizing their need for support coming out of the pandemic.
Elena Barcenes, owner of the restaurant Rincon Salvadoreno, said that coming together to address quality of life issues “would make logistical sense.”
“I don't see my neighbors as competition,” she added. “I wish to work with [nearby businesses].”
A version of the idea has been in the works since 2014 and was most recently brought up in 2019, languishing through three Queens borough president administrations. The latest iteration was brought up again in council at the request of Mayor Eric Adams, a son of Southeast Queens.
Though Community Board 12, which includes the area in its district, voted against the plan in December, all three business groups voted in favor of the merger, according to Small Business Services deputy commissioner Blaise Backer.
Backer said the “pandemic further demonstrated the need” for the unity emphasized by proponents like Barcenes.
At the end of 2021, Sutphin BID Executive Director Alix Duroseau Jr. told the Queens Chronicle his board was opposed due to lingering concerns over an apparent lack of a concrete plan, despite the intrigue of the alleged benefits.
Former Council Member I. Daneek Miller spoke Thursday in favor of the proposal, which he introduced before leaving office.
“This proposal is a culmination of eight years of work… it is also the next step in the renaissance of Downtown Jamaica,” he said. “Decades ago shoppers from all over the city flocked to Downtown Jamaica. In the time since then we've been inundated with discount businesses which fail to reflect the investment… we have a chance to turn this around.”
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilmembers Nantasha Williams — who succeeded Miller — and James Gennaro are also in favor of the plan.
“I am glad… to support the unification of the [BIDs]. The merging of these bids will be beneficial to all parties involved. With this new larger scale BID it will be easier for the board to be advocates for businesses,” Williams said. “The pandemic has decimated our commercial districts and if the unifications will be paying less but receiving more services then this is a no brainer.”
Impacted businesses have 30 days to file a comment before the process continues.
BIDs are areas where neighborhood maintenance and promotion is overseen by local stakeholders, with an emphasis on support for small businesses. Though BID services do not replace city resources, the City Council has been in charge of the program’s oversight since the 1990s.
