By Chris Fuchs
Wellington Chen, a consultant for TDC International Development and Construction Corporation, which is developing the former home of Queens County Savings Bank, said the market was set up to sell products for the Chinese New Year, which began Jan. 24.
Chen said the temporary retail site was established only so that the developer could earn some income while deciding on an ultimate proposal that might include razing the building.
According to both the developer's website and Chen, the proposal is called the “Western Flushing 2000 Project,” a town center of sorts to be built on the corner of Main Street and 39th Avenue. It could house such well-known stores and restaurants as Borders, Barnes and Noble, Red Lobster and TGI Friday's.
But in a Jan. 19 letter to the developer, Councilwoman Julia Harrison (D-Flushing) said Chen had told her that “the development scheme you were engaged in had fallen through,” a claim that Chen said was “absolutely false.”
“She has never tried to understand what this project is about,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “She doesn't know which end of the town is up. It's just so ridiculous.”
In her letter, Harrison said the details of the original proposal indeed jibed with a master plan introduced in 1996 to create a “World's Fair atmosphere” in Flushing. John Watts, the councilwoman's chief of staff, said the proposal was to raze the building at 38-25 Main St. after Queens Bancorp merged with Haven Bancorp of Long Island and moved to Nassau County. In its place the developer is considering erecting a glass complex similar in design to that of the Flushing Library, Chen said, among several proposals.
Harrison said the developers showed “little or no regard for the needs and concerns of the people in the greater, international community of Flushing” and the center “is yet another disappointment to people who want to shop in their downtown.”
“We are trying to be inclusive,” Chen said, stressing that the market was only temporary. “There are many obstacles that remain, but as long as we have people like Julia Harrison, it'll never happen.”
Both Watts and Harrison said they were disturbed about the store's selling merchandise geared only toward Asian consumers. Watts said he had attended several meetings, including one at the developer's headquarters in Flushing, and was assured that the facility would be “multi-cultural.”
Chen said that has not changed.
“In the meantime, the owner needs an income,” Chen said, adding that at the end of the Lunar New Year next week, the vendors will leave the building.
