By Tien-Shun Lee
Commercial sites developed by Forest City Ratner Companies - Queens Place in Forest Hills, the Steinway Street Theaters in Astoria, the Shops at Northern Boulevard in Long Island City and Maspeth Center – have been fully occupied since they were opened, a director of the company said.
“The Queens market is a very strong market,” said Richard Pessin, the senior vice president and director of retail development at Forest City Ratner. “We've had nothing but good experiences. We have little or no vacancies in any of our Queens projects.”
Based in Brooklyn, the Forest City Ratner development company began researching Queens as a place to build commercial sites in the early 1990s.
Studies found that borough residents traveled to Long Island and New Jersey to shop in supermarkets and malls, Pessin said in a telephone interview earlier this month.
“In the suburbs, a 30,000-square-foot supermarket would serve 30,000 people,” Pessin said. “In Queens, there were very few full-service supermarkets, so we actively pursued sites to put supermarkets.”
The company eventually opened two commercial centers with Stop-n-Shops – one in Long Island City that opened in November 1997 and the other in Maspeth that opened a month later.
In addition to supermarkets, the development company also saw the need for movie theaters.
“In Queens, most movie theaters were around Forest Hills. There were others scattered about, but they're not state-of-the-art,” Pessin said.
While residents of the suburbs generally have one movie screen per 10,000 people, in Queens the ratio of screens to people is much higher, Pessin added.
Forest City Ratner eventually developed the 14-screen Steinway Street Theaters at 35-01 37th St. in Astoria, which opened in October 1999. The theaters were originally operated by Regal Cinemas but later changed hands to be operated by United Artists.
“The movie theater does great. It's one of the top 10 movie theaters in the city,” Pessin said.
Aside from supermarkets and movie theaters, Forest City Ratner developers also sought to attract general retail stores to their sites. In September 2001, the company opened Queens Place at 88-01 Queens Blvd., its largest commercial site in Queens, which occupies 440,000 square feet.
Queens Place is leased to several major “big box” chain retailers, including Target, Macy's and Best Buy electronics. Other retailers and restaurants that occupy the commercial center include Sketchers, Daffy's, Red Lobster, Starbucks, Sprint and Rockaway Bedding.
“Everyone in Queens Place does well, for the most part,” Pessin said. “I don't think our turnover has been great, certainly nothing atypical for the industry.”
Besides Stop-n-Shop, major retailers at the Shops at Northern Boulevard at 48-18 Northern Blvd. in Long Island City include Old Navy, Marshalls and Kids 'R Us. At Maspeth Center at Grand Avenue and 74th Street, Mandee and Payless Shoes have stores in addition to Stop-n-Shop.
Pessin said the development of each commercial center in Queens was a risky endeavor, but the company is still looking into developing more sites.
“The market we still feel is underserved. We still feel that there's a lot of room for growth,” he said. “We are always thinking of new development.”
Reach reporter Tien-Shun Lee by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 718-229-0300, ext. 155.
