By Courtney Dentch
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his officials have been pushing to draw the successful home-grown airline to the area around the Jamaica AirTrain station But the company moved from Kew Gardens to Forest Hills just two years ago and is locked into its location for another eight years, said Todd Berk, an airline spokesman.
“We're committed to this building until 2012,” he said of JetBlue's Queens Boulevard headquarters.
But the city is still urging the company to consider relocating to Jamaica, a move the airline does favor, Berk said. By drawing JetBlue to downtown Jamaica, specifically the area around the Sutphin Boulevard and 94th Avenue station of the AirTrain link to Kennedy Airport, the city hopes to cement the region as a vital transportation hub, said Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff in a recent interview with the TimesLedger.
“Jamaica has enormous potential as a transportation-oriented hub and as a more vibrant transportation hub,” he said.
Downtown Jamaica sees thousands of riders every day from the dozens of Long Island Rail Road, subway and bus lines. The AirTrain joined this transit nexus in December, offering airport passengers a connection to the mass transportation routes in Jamaica and ultimately a way into Manhattan.
The state is now working to extend the AirTrain into Lower Manhattan to make the rail link a one-seat ride. Now passengers have to transfer in Jamaica for service into the city, but the plans for the extension would have riders use Long Island Rail Road tracks to travel through Brooklyn, making stops in Jamaica and Brooklyn before arriving in Manhattan.
In the meantime, the city is still waiting for an anchor tenant to make Jamaica its home. Doctoroff and Bloomberg have been talking with JetBlue about the move, but the company has postponed the decision because of its lease in Forest Hills, Berk said.
Doctoroff hopes JetBlue's presence in Jamaica would draw other private companies to the area, he said.
“The progress in Jamaica has gone slower than we'd like because we know who we want the tenant to be,” Doctoroff said. “It hasn't happened yet, but it will. It's a matter of getting the right tenants in there to catalyze the private markets.”
The city has committed $20 million to help subsidize JetBlue's move and $60 million in infrastructure improvements to draw the airline to the area, he said.
Meanwhile, JetBlue has been outgrowing its home at Kennedy's Terminal 6, Berk said.
“We're utilizing it the best we can because we're already getting larger,” he said.
The airline has consistently grown in passenger volume and number of flights and destinations since is opened in 2000. It helped push Kennedy Airport to the fastest growing airport in the region last year and it is planning to begin flights out of LaGuardia Airport later this year.
JetBlue is also looking to convert the old Trans World Air building, Terminal 5, into an operating terminal once again. The building was hailed as an architectural marvel, thanks to its swooping design that imitates flight but has been vacant since TWA left in 2001. JetBlue would preserve the building and use it as a feeder into the new $750 million terminal it is building.
“We're just waiting for the Port Authority to approve our plans,” Berk said.
The Port Authority board should approve the plans in the next few months, said Bill Cahill, spokesman for the PA.
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
