Former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman is working hard to make people understand that the Flushing, Willets Point, Corona Local Development Corporation (LDC) is more about Flushing and Corona and less about Willets Point.
“The Willets Point development is a city project – we were involved very early on,” Shulman, the President and CEO of the LDC, explained. “Our primary focus is to develop downtown Flushing to the river, including an esplanade with a pedestrian bridge to Willets Point, and Corona of course.”
On Wednesday, April 14, the LDC held a fundraiser at Citi Field, home of one of their corporate members, the New York Mets. Initially a public/private partnership, the non-profit corporation has evolved into a privately-financed group, tapping both non-members and members like the Mets for financial support. “They’ve been very supportive,” Shulman said of her member/host.
With a roster comprising a veritable “Who’s Who” of local business and civic leaders, the attendees got to view a presentation of two of the LDC’s forward looking projects, the Flushing Riverfront Esplanade and the Flushing L.I.R.R. Transit Oriented Development (TOD).
The downtown Flushing project involves rehabilitation of the river, once a bustling waterway, and shoreline, with development and infrastructure improvements past College Point Boulevard.
The renaissance of the eastern shore would be complete with an esplanade, crowned by a pedestrian bridge halfway between heavily-trafficked Northern Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, connecting Flushing to the greenway on the western riverbank.
“It’s an ambitious plan, with the economy the way it is,” Shulman conceded. “But when the economy improves, we want to be ready, hopefully, to put shovels in the ground.”
During the presentation, it was made clear that the Main Street L.I.R.R. station is woefully underutilized, while the No. 7 Train terminus just yards away is swamped with commuters daily.
A major part of the problem is that station access is woefully inadequate, according to transportation experts, with long stairways providing access to one platform or the other – with the city-bound access through an alleyway on a narrow side street.
The proposed re-invention of the station would entail elevators to the platforms, making this important train stop handicapped-accessible, as well as a crossover-overpass. Moreover, the project calls for affordable housing and retail space to be constructed over Municipal Lot 3, adjacent to the tracks.
“Because of the housing component, HPD [the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development] is the lead agency – we’re in a supporting role,” Shulman explained.
“One thing we are going forward with is the improvement of College Point Boulevard in Flushing,” she declared. “The plan is to create medians in the downtown stretch which can be planted,” Shulman continued, as part of an extensive greening of major thoroughfares in the downtown area, as far a Union Street and beyond.
“We want to move on that project as soon as this fall,” she said.
