As Neighborhood Grows, So Do Worries

E&I Deli owner Song Kim knows Hunter’s Point needs a big supermarket. Even though a large grocery chain store could hurt his business, Kim also knows it’s only a matter of time before one opens to accommodate the neighborhood’s projected growth.
“What can I do? I’m a small business,” Kim said in his office above the Vernon Boulevard store. Business is good now, Kim said, because the foot traffic on which he depends is lively. But his relatively small grocery, with its three tiny aisles of dry goods, deli counter, and mini produce section cannot meet everyone’s needs, he said.
The Queens West master plan calls for more than 7,000 new apartments and condos and more than 2.5 million square feet of new office and retail space along the entire waterfront development.
Real estate experts and community leaders say the current boom in residential development could lead to more commercial development, which in turn could attract more residential newcomers to this little corner of Long Island City — enough, perhaps to signal larger retailers that Hunter’s Point is ripe for the picking.
For now, small businesses are watching new development with a mix of skepticism and hope.
“The two buildings that went up were very good for us,” said a local pharmacist who declined to give his name. “Right now, [business] is good, we’re happy with the way it is.”
But the pharmacist said that additional residential development beyond the City Lights and Avalon apartment buildings could persuade a behemoth pharmacy chain such as Duane Reade that the neighborhood finally has the population density large chains seek.
“Gayle Baron, president of the Long Island City Business Development Corporation (LICBDC), has been lobbying Duane Reade for years to try to pursuade them to move into the neighborhood,” said Dan Miner, senior vice president of business services for the LICBDC, a nonprofit that supports the local business community.
Miner sees no conflict in supporting small local businesses while courting the larger chains. He believes the neighborhood has room for both.
“I think it’s going to serve different portions of the market,” Miner said. “The long-time residents will continue to go to established independent retailers. Those kinds of retailers are going to have an advantage because they have connections in the neighborhood.”
But Miner says the LICBDC wants to know more about how small businesses are faring in the area, especially along Vernon Boulevard. So the LICBDC is planning to survey small retail businesses from the lower portion of Vernon to 44th Drive to uncover data such as how each business is doing, what its needs are and whether the business has any problems with city services. Miner said the LICBDC would use the information to design services to support small businesses, especially as the neighborhood changes.
“People are very anxious to see the amenities,” said Community Board Chair Joseph Conley. The area’s transformation is exciting, and more retail services are desirable for a population expected to triple in the next five years, Conley said. But he cautioned that community leaders and developers must ensure that new retail businesses and residential developments do not squeeze out existing industrial and manufacturing jobs.
If Song Kim’s E&I Deli is any barometer of change in the neighborhood, that squeeze is already tightening. Kim said he’s already seeing fewer blue collar workers at his deli counter and check out line.
“Little things are changing,” he said. “I will just have to have luck.”
Luck — for Kim, the local pharmacy owner and other local retail business owners — would mean attracting more new customers as each new apartment building fills up and hanging on to existing customers as new retail establishments open and compete for their loyalty.
For now, business owners and their customers can only watch and wait.
Kristin Espeland is a freelance writer.