Queens Emerging June 1, 2001 [Day 1] : Facing Midtown

Day 1 / go to Day 2 / go to Day 3 / return to Main

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: Series of event seminars and conferences that make up part of the Institute's program during the year and we have never had a level of interest or respond to any of our events as these. So the buzz, for whatever purpose, is out there about your borough and we welcome you very much to the Institute and Baruch College. I want to start just by saying a word or two about the Institute. My name is Henry Wollman. I am the Director of the Institute. The Institute has been in existence for almost five years now as the creation of William and Anita Newman in a gift to the City University; one of the largest and one of the earliest of the private endowment gifts that was made to the City University. The Newmans have made their career for three generations in the world of real estate and after them it was time to pay back as graduates of the City University, it was time to pay back the City University and as residents of New York City and New York State. It was time to pay back the city and state for the good will and good fortune it had brought them and New Plan Realty Trust; the great company that Bill Newman built. One of the great American real estate trusts.

The gift was really to create a real estate institute. Part of which was to educate the kind of people that the City University specializes in; bright, poor, eager, clever kids. Very much like Bill Newman's father and Bill himself and his son Steven L. Newman, who unfortunately died at a very early age. Part of the work of the Institute in collaboration with both the School of Public Affairs and the School of Business at the City University is to create such an educational program which will offer to young people interested in joining the real estate industry in New York. You know, it is one of those driving forces in New York. In many other cities the real estate industry is the still end of a lot of other things. Here, it really drives so much of where we go. In terms of both the public sector and private sector opportunities for young people, careers, one of the things the Institute is very much working toward with Baruch College is the creation of those educational opportunities.

The second part of the Institute's mission is really to try, over the course of a decade, to establish this strongest public possible Real Estate Institute think tank. I am not sure what the right words among those many adjectives and nouns actually are, but a place where the issues of public policy, the confluence of interest and sometimes the non- confluence of interests between private and public sector endeavors of real estate can have a way of being talked about, worked out and shared. We look upon this set of conferences and seminars and the emerging set of publications and web site material that the Institute will create as a source of information to the citizens of New York about, if you will forgive me for that phrase, the cutting edge issues of real estate as it impacts all our lives and the future of the city. So, we are very happy for all the cooperation we received from the office of the Borough President and from Crain's New York has been our long time apartment there in the City Round Table series for making this possible.

As you will see, the morning is divided into four parts and we'll go through them in our own usual fashion which means we will be keeping speakers on schedule and try to be certain that no one speaks longer than their allotted time and that's my unfortunate responsibility to be as brusque about that as I can and to be as annoying about that as I can. The goal is to provide a very wide form of opinions this morning and on the two successive mornings about the issues of Queens as it emerges in a new role in the City and a new role into the region.

The photographs you see in back of me were taken only two weeks ago from the very top floor of the CityCorp building courtesy of (inaudible) which has just moved in its world headquarters to the 53rd and 54th floors of CityCorp and were kind enough to allow me to take these photographs from their window. They demonstrate more than anything that we can say today this sort of potential marriage between New York City between Manhattan and Queens and one of the things which we hear about on the first of three days as we move from west to east in the borough is the relationship between the west side of Queens and Manhattan as a source of economy and a source of jobs, as a source of real estate development for the city. So, with that it gives me great pleasure to welcome our first two speakers and I am wondering if Deputy Mayor Robert Harding and Deputy Borough President Peter Magnani can join us here. Allow me just to introduce Robert Harding.

Robert Harding was appointed by Mayor Giuliani as Deputy Mayor for economic development and finance on March 2, 2000. As Deputy Mayor, Mr. Harding coordinates the economic development policies of the Giuliani administration and oversees all the city's negotiations and is responsible for housing and finance operations. From 1998 until 2000 Mr. Harding served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He was responsible for the development negotiation and implementation of the city's thirty-seven billion dollars annual operating budget and the ten year forty-five billion dollar capital plan. From 1994 until '97 he served as the Director of the State Legislative Affairs for the City representing the Mayor of City Agencies for the State Legislature. Between 1994 and 1998 (inaudible) city program bills were enacted into law including school (inaudible), the transitional finance authority and Safe Streets Safe City renewal. Please join me in welcoming Deputy Mayor Robert Harding.

MR. HARDING

ROBERT HARDING: Morning. When I began to write my remarks a month or so ago I was going to open with the story of the success of the Queens baseball team, but I took that out. As a precondition to being a senior member of the Giuliani administration I am a Yankee fan. Over the next three days you are going to get a great deal of specifics as to what is happening in Queens. I'd like to take a few minutes if I can explain where we were in Queens, where we are and where we are going in Queens and as some of us start to wind up our government careers maybe we can offer a few suggestions as to what we should be doing in the future.

The economic development success and successes in Queens is not an accident. It is not a result of any one factor. It is a result of a variety of factors. I think it is terribly important that we spend a few minutes discussing that. There are two jobs that one has to do when you want to bring business into one of the other boroughs. It is a fatal sin inside City Hall to use the expression "outer borough." We don't say it anymore. We say other boroughs. If anybody has the temerity to say, "Oh, I came into the city yesterday," and they are referring to Manhattan, that's not well received either. The goal over the last seven and a half years has been to not only keep jobs in the area of New York and expand the private job base in the City of New York, but to do the level best to spread the private sector job base outside the traditional Manhattan core. If the traditional Manhattan core has historically been midtown, the goal -- and it has been done in incremental stages -- the goal has been as follows:

First, to revitalize lower Manhattan. Hemorrhaging jobs at a record pace. Just by way of historical perspective. Between 1990 and 1994 the city lost three hundred and forty-five thousand private sector jobs. A great many of those people came from lower Manhattan, which is where the fire industry remains strongest. It was until the nineties, finance insurance and real estate. As a result of the lower Manhattan revitalization plan which the city advocated in Albany and passed in '95 a series of great tax breaks, abatements, energy rebates was put in place and the success over the last seven years of lower Manhattan is fairly obvious. Thank goodness the success has remained in tact in spite of the several hiccups that we have all seen in the last seven to ten months.

The second piece of that equation is to do whatever we can as a government to diversify the job base in the City of New York. Not only to diversify the job base as far as the types of jobs that we are looking to recruit but to diversify geographically the job location in the City of New York. It is the latter point, it's the point of convincing businesses in the City of New York there are other places other than Manhattan where you can open up business, move business or establish your business, but it has been difficult. Very difficult. It has been difficult with the incumbent businesses in the City of New York. It has been difficult with the businesses that have been thinking of coming into the City of New York to explain to them that if you're not dead center midtown Manhattan that you are not getting the New York City experience. But, I believe we have been very successful in doing it. It has been a combination of creating a climate in the City of New York, all five boroughs of the City of New York. It has been an advocacy, a plan to create a business friendly environment in all five boroughs. Here's what businesses think is friendly. Businesses first and for most think some place to work is friendly if they are safe. I believe many of you have heard the crime rate in the City of New York has dropped. I don't know if any of you are aware of that. We so rarely talk about it so let me just spend a minute on it.

Queens, as you know, is divided into two boroughs. Queens Patrol North and Queens Patrol South. Since 1993 the crime rate in those two boroughs has dropped sixty-five percent. Businesses don't want to go establish some operation if their customers, employees or families don't feel safe. Make them feel safe, make them feel safe in perception and they'll come. The second thing we had to do is offer up a series of incentives to bring businesses into the four boroughs outside the borough of Manhattan. That last would include by the way north of 96th Street in the borough of Manhattan. So nine, ten years ago the City of New York established the ICIP program to offer a series of incentives. That was a wonderful foundation. Since that foundation was laid we had increased the ICIP benefits one or two times since then. Last year I think was probably the premier incentive package enacted in Albany to help north of 96th Street in Manhattan and the other four boroughs. It was the Commercial Revitalization Plan. I am sorry that did not get the play it should have when it was enacted, but the economic development corporation which as you know has primary responsibility for bringing and retaining jobs in the City of New York has done a wonderful job of explaining this to the business community. But the commercial revitalization plan was tailored. Its primary goal was tailored toward incumbent businesses in Manhattan to encourage them to move either north of 96th Street or into one of the other four boroughs and they'll be rewarded in a series of properties tax abatements, with a series of employee tax credits. They'll be rewarded for that.

So we tripled the employee tax credit from one thousand to three thousand. We added enhanced real estate abatements and did that with the sole purpose of bringing businesses into the other four boroughs. The space that would be left from a company that moved from Manhattan into one of those four boroughs would be replaced with another company coming into the City of New York so that space remains occupied. Two days ago the commercial revitalization program I think had its finest success when MetLife announced along with the representatives of the government Governor's office that they would move a thousand employees into Long Island City. The space they were leaving in Manhattan had already been rented to Credit Swiss and that was going to be an additional one thousand jobs, a commitment for another five hundred jobs over the next period of time and MetLife was convinced that Long Island City, that Queens, one of the other boroughs was the place to go. It was done in large measure because of what was established last year during the Commercial Revitalization Program.

One of the lessons that I learned from an old law professor of mine was the barrel always rolls. This is what he used to tell us. What he was telling us back then is what doesn't work now will work later so never give up. Always keep trying. Always keep exploring. A legal theory which may be laughed at by the court today, may be very well accepted by the court five, ten, fifteen twenty years from now.

I view economic development in the same way. The barrel will always roll. If something is not working, keep exploring. If something is working but it need changes don't sit on your laurels. Keep rolling and rolling. The MetLife deal is a perfect example of that because as we were all congratulating ourselves after the next enactment of the Commercial Revitalization Program in Albany, MetLife comes to us and says, "You know we are being interested because we are being pulled by Newark, we would love to go to Long Island City but you got to do something for us. You got to give us a package." And oops, insurance companies don't qualify for the Commercial Revitalization Program.

So we said we could race up to Albany and get a bill done immediately. So what we did was created in house in the mayor's office with the Economic Development Corporation, our own Commercial Revitalization Program. We gave them the benefits in Manhattan that they would have gotten had they not been limited by the law that insurance companies couldn't get it. We gave it to them. They went to Long Island city. We now have the property replaced by Credit Swiss. Kept looking and looking and looking and experimenting. And what is mind boggling -- and this is one of the things I hope people who are advocates for job expansion in the City of New York, just not in the borough of Queens, but everywhere -- what is terribly important as we bring in a new mayor, as we bring in a new city counsel and four new borough presidents, it is terribly important that people have in their minds that there always needs to be and evaluate and a reevaluation and a re-reevaluation of what we are doing to retain and keep jobs. Don't be hindered. Don't be bamboozled. Don't be intimidated by people who use expressions such as corporate welfare. It is seven and a half years since the city began the great job expansion which has been unparalleled in the City of New York in nearly 50 years. 494,000 private sector jobs created since 1994.

Two days ago the mayor stands at a press conference with the president of MetLife and announces a thousand new jobs for Long Island City. A million point two square feet. The borough of Manhattan didn't lose any jobs because it has been replaced. The cost to the City of New York is twenty-six and a half million dollars. The City of New York will recoup that investment in six point two months from the additional tax benefits we're going to get. And sure enough, as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and the Yankees repeat in the World Series, sure enough -- I can't help it, sure enough a reporter in the back room stands up and says, "Mayor, 26 point 5 million dollars of city tax payer's money? That's seems like an awful lot, after all, MetLife is a multi-billion dollar corporation." And the mayor in his usual demure, quiet was way responded and all you saw left was like the Wizard of Oz, like a pair of shoes from this reporter. Seven and a half years. Nearly 500,000 private sector jobs. Do you know that New York City now outpaces the nation in job creation? Never happened before until three years ago. Do you know that New York State's job creation is virtually flat but for the City of New York. Nearly 500,000 jobs.

Please, as we go forward don't give up what we done before. I am not saying as we start to look to create more jobs as we have to start sitting down with existing corporations to develop packages to retain them, I am not saying you have to give up the farm. I am not saying you open up and give companies whatever they want. It is negotiation. You have competitors. We have competitors who have advantages that we don't. We have competitors in New Jersey. We can do certain things to make ourselves competitive with the packages that they are offering in New Jersey and quite frankly we can't do certain things they can do in New Jersey. We have the Port Authority subsidizing the Path train at record amounts to keep the fair artificially low. That has an adverse effect. That's a loss theoretically to the City of New York of let's say a dollar and a quarter for every job retention we do. Why? Because we have got to go toe to toe with Jersey on the job retention but also make up for this artificially inflated subsidy that goes with the Path train that parenthetically means less money from the Port Authority into the City of New York.

A couple of airports that are located in the Borough of Queens. That's something else that needs to be looked at and pushed very, very strongly. The airports in the City of New York are a disaster. It is not Bob Harding who is saying it. It is not Mayor Giuliani saying it. It is people who come to work in the City of New York. It is the tourists who come into the City of New York, the businesses, every magazine that rates and evaluates airports. We have to do something to change the management and functioning of our two airports. No great city will remain successful unless they have a hub or hubs to bring people into work and to visit. As we move forward please don't let the aggressive nature that we have done in the past few years as far as putting note to the Port Authority's lack of investments in the city's airports. Please don't let that expire. Please don't lose the momentum that exists.

The other thing that you need to be successful is an advocate, okay, for each individual borough. We always want the city to be viewed as one city, one standard. That's true, but we have five boroughs and each of those boroughs have presidents. Each borough needs an advocate. Needs somebody who can go to City Hall and specify in no uncertain terms what they want, how they want it and when they want it. Anybody in this room hasn't received a phone call from Borough President Claire Shulman, you are very, very fortunate. I can't think of anything that I would rather not do then have Claire call me at 11:00 at night at my house because some project didn't move just exactly in the speed that you thought it should be. At some point we'll do anything for the Borough of Queens just to keep that phone call from being placed in the Borough of Queens. All that I have said is a good thing not a bad thing. I am not saying this parenthetically because Peter Magnani is sitting right next to me and going to rat me out to Claire. It just happens to be the case. Where was Claire Shulman two days ago during the press conference between the mayor and President of MetLife? Standing right next to both those people because any time that my office or the Economic Development Corporation thought we had other things to do during those negotiations we were reminded we didn't. We had this and only this to do. We also have some energy issues we had to solve as well but those two things kept us busy. Please, you now have four new borough presidents. You can go back and forth as to the powers of presidents. Things like that. I am not going to get into that.

I'll tell you one thing. Advocacy and understanding borough needs is critical to the success of a Borough President. It doesn't diminish the value of that in all five boroughs. There are as of right benefits and negotiating benefits. That is something that has to be looked at very, very carefully because there is a certain philosophy that if you increase the as of right benefits that you do statutorily the commercial revitalization program, ICIP, any tax caught the city might enact corporate, general corporation tax, personal property tax personal income tax. Any tax that you do, all that actually does is raise the floor because corporations that want to come or are looking to stay are not going to be satisfied with that. They'll walk into City Hall and say, "Okay I got that. That's nice. So does the guy next door. What are you going to do for me?" It is interesting because you want to create an as of right statutory benefit package that lures companies into the City of New York. You want to do your best to see that that package is enough to keep them or enough to bring them. You want to keep the incentives beyond that as limited as possible. That's how you sort of control the incentive package. You want to keep doing more and more and more as of right in a global way to encourage courage businesses to come.

It is not just the business corporation tax. The commercial rent tax which is now gone every place except south of 96th Street. It is not just those taxes. It is the taxes that effect individual people. It is the elimination -- you know in 1994 it was a personal income tax and two surcharges on top of your personal information tax. Just by a show of hand how many people actually knew that? Okay, that's not a lot. In 1994 the city of New York had a personal income tax and two surcharges on top of that income tax. One was dedicated for cops. Wasn't necessarily used for cops, but the statute said it was for cops. The second was just a surcharge because the city didn't want to say it was taxing more so it kept the base and surcharged.

Safe Streets Safe City surcharge was eliminated three years ago. The other surcharge was halved two years ago and we are proposing to half the half in this budget. It is the tax cuts that effect everybody because after all it is not just businesses, it is employees. We want to keep these employees in the City of New York. Especially in light of the commuter tax. They don't make any money now on people who live outside the City of New York. I have yet to give a speech in the last two years where I haven't mentioned the commuter tax which is a fiscal equivalent to the drive by shooting. So as you evaluate and review the mayor's budget, he's in negotiations with the City Counsel. You stand to hear from people who want to seek city wide or borough wide offices that you can't afford tax cuts. Tax cuts hurt. We have given away too many tax cuts. Please think of what corporations are thinking inside the city and outside the city when they hear that. Think of what competitive position that puts us in and think what would happen to the four hundred and ninety-four thousand private sector jobs that have been created if we had that philosophy seven years ago and let's not use it. Thank you all very, very much.

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: Thank you, Deputy Mayor Harding. Unfortunately, the only sad note this morning is on Claire Shulman because of a family problem that has forced her out of New York today and for the weekend probably will not be with us. Claire was everything that Bob Harding said she was insisting she get her way in putting this conference together the way she wanted it as opposed to the way anybody else might have wanted it. I think it is to her staff's credit and to our exhaustion that they won us out on almost every point of organization. It just makes it sad she's unable to be here today to see all of you and greet all of you and greet the people sitting in the two rooms over there which are almost full now in terms of people who are joining all of you in here. Let me tell you a little bit about Claire Shulman before introducing Deputy Mayor Peter Magnani who will address (inaudible).

In 1986 Claire became the first woman to be elected the borough President of Queens county. As the highest ranking official in a borough of almost two million people Claire plays a major role in a wide range of land use issues. This is how extraordinary, how easy it is for us to say Claire as opposed to the Borough President Shulman or Ms. Shulman, the way it is written here. The development of the city's expense in capital budgets and makes recommendations to the mayor and other city officials that are the interest of the people to the borough. Claire is a graduate of Adelphi where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws. In 1993 she received on honorary Doctor of Science from the College of Aeronautics. She was also the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Queens College medal and the LaGuardia Community College Medal. She began her professional career as a registered nurse at Queens Hospital Center where she also met her future husband Dr. Melvin Shulman. At the end of at least this stage of her political career I guess it is hard for any of us who have been in New York for a long time to imagine Queens without Claire or Claire without Queens. We just wish her all the best in her forthcoming endeavors and in dealing with the issues that took her away from us today.

It does, however, give me great pressure to introduce Peter Magnani, the Deputy Borough President of Queens and in many ways the co-author along with us at most of these three sessions. Peter is a graduate of the City College, part of the City University. As an architect who attended the School of Architecture at Columbia. Graduated the Architecture School of Pratt and is a registered architect in New York State. Following his work in private practice he began working at the New York City Department of City Planning as an urban designer. In 1977 he was appointed the Director of the Bronx Office of City Planning. In 1980 he was appointed Director of the Queens Office of City Planning. Finally, in '86 he was appointed Deputy Borough President under Claire's direction. Peter's major accomplishments as Deputy Borough President have included the rezoning of dozens of neighborhoods to create an appropriate zoning restrictions that generate reasonable and responsible development while preserving the character of existing neighborhoods. The economic revitalization of many communities particularly downtown Jamaica and western Queens, the expansion of the borough's economic base, record capital construction programs to improve the borough's infrastructure, increase funding for senior citizens and activities, cultural programs and libraries and he has also been responsible in large measure and had a strong role in any event in a passive legislation to reform the could co-op and condo conversion process. Please join me in welcoming Deputy Borough President, Peter Magnani.

MR. MAGNANI

PETER MAGNANI: Thank you very much, Henry. Bob mentioned late night phone calls from Claire. I've also received them. All my staff has received them as well. If Claire was here she would thank Mayor Giuliani for making the city whole with regard to considering the city five boroughs instead of just one major borough and four outer boroughs. I think I was glad to congratulate, thank Bob for bringing the message back to Mayor Giuliani. He really has done a magnificent job and we all need to appreciate the job he has done. I am very honored to be here this morning to initiate this round table. The Newman Real Estate Institute of Baruch is to be commended on devoting today and the next two consecutive Fridays to Queens County.

The Borough of Queens is a force in the metropolitan area. This is something I and over two million people in Queens have always known and I am glad the rest of the world over the bridges and through the tunnels will finally be enlightened. In order to give you a perspective, let's do a brief history section. Over one hundred years ago a trip to Queens meant riding through unpaved roads to visit small country villages surrounded by farms. Maspeth, Jamaica and Elmhurst were market towns for shops and offices. Ferry boat to transport people from Manhattan to Kew Gardens and College Point and north beach now to LaGuardia Airport. The completion of the Queensboro Bridge and the Long Island Railroad East River Tunnels and the turn of the century became the catalyst for the unprecedented building boom that resulted in new housing industries in commercial districts. This period from 1910 to 1950 was probably the greatest time for you urban expansion in our nation's history. Entire neighborhoods with new homes, schools and shops were created. Our aviation industry which is both a blessing and a curse took us into the age.

Then in the late 1960's like so much of urban America we started falling behind. With few exceptions urban issues such as mass transit, housing, economic development, and education were put on the back burner by both the Federal and State Government. The American future we were told was in the suburbs. New York City suffered and Queens suffered. Fortunately, there were some of us who never bought that dream. Some of us always liked living in the city. We didn't see the attraction of commuting three hours a day or watching our children come of age in shopping malls and living in cookie cutter neighborhoods where the words cultural diversity are uttered in disdain. But despite planners who fell in love with the endless suburban utopias there were still people like me and our office and I suspect many you here in the audience today who felt that urban areas especially New York City were important enough to fight for. New York is different from any other place on earth. Yes, we have incredible natural assets. It was the harbor and our strategic location that gave us a leading edge. Then the development of infrastructure roads and bridges. Then airports that created opportunities of growth for this city. No other ingredient was as key as our people. History from time eternal has proven that success of every city is the ability to attract people with capital, education and most importantly energy.

If we look back over the last two hundred years we notice a direct connection between the arrival of people from the world over and the ascendants of our city in terms of physical great economic expansion and cultural dominance. This pattern is repeated many times. In the 1840's with immigrants from northern Europe the early 1900's with immigrants from eastern and southern Europe and is occurring right now with people from Asia, Latin America and Africa and it is occurring in every neighborhood in Queens County. Take a stroll down any of our neighborhood streets. It is not only the economy of Wall Street that propels our city. It is the economy of Main Street, Jamaica Avenue and Queens Boulevard. In the last ten years almost every neighborhood has prospered due to an infuse of new energy brought about by new Americans in their entrepreneurial spirits. Sometimes our boroughs compare to the lower east side at the turn of the century. That is only half true. In 1901 most people came here with just the shirts on their backs. In 2001 many people arrive in Queens with some degree of education. Sometimes with capital and with strong continuing connections to a home land that makes the terms global economy really mean something instead of just buzz words heard. Granted not everyone arrives ready to start a new life. Many problems exist due to the lack of job skills, low income housing and difficulty of educating the waves of children that enter our public schools, but it is our responsibility to address these needs head on. These issues have been the Borough President's priority. Every day people come to our office with problems we try to solve. While fortunately many of these problems do not mean the significance of life and death, they are critical to the future of the city and the borough.

There are five main issues that have consumed most of our time in our office. Creating jobs, providing housing, education and improving infrastructure and expanding cultural facilities. Putting bread on the table is the most fundamental need and I think Claire tells us every day we have to create jobs and put food on the table. Providing job opportunities on every level is crucial to the economic well being of our city. As the economy of our region transforms from a bustling manufacturing center to one that is service oriented, we have had to rethink and retool the way we keep and attract businesses. The immigrants of 1901 were employed in factories with smoke stacks that (inaudible) Long Island City, Maspeth and other communities. This is no longer the case. Our economy has become much more diversified. Yet the industrial base that provides thousands upon thousands of jobs has diminished but there is still an urgent need to support manufacturers. New incentives, zoning and training, we can retain a solid and stable manufacturing sector. A few years ago there was a discussion that Long Island City was to become another Soho or Williamsburg with restaurants and designer clothing shops to the horror of certain trendy types it never happened. Unlike Soho or Williamsburg, Long Island never lost its manufacturing base. Thus it never lost the thousands of blue collar jobs that are part of the engine that drives a city. I am pleased that in the next few weeks the rezoning of Long Island city will be approved. Specific areas especially around Queens Plaza and the (inaudible) Jackson Avenue will be upzoned to accommodate new commercial development, but in doing this we have kept the majority of Long Island City as a manufacturing area. I believe this balances the need of both manufacturing and service sectors of our community. In the last year we have seen growth on both sides. A number of manufacturers especially printers have found a home in Long Island City. They realize they are closer to their clients in midtown Manhattan than they were located on Hudson Square. In terms of service businesses MetLife's move to the Bridge Tech Plaza on Queens Plaza foreshadows the wave of office development that will build, strengthen and add diversity to the Queens economy.

Even before the incorporation of five boroughs in 1898 Queens county has been the sight of innovative housing developments that have been the models of residential planning. The Steinway Company in Astoria built one of the first company plans complete with housing at the end of the 19th century. Sunnyside Gardens, Forest Hill Gardens and Jackson Heights all developed over seventy-five years ago are still some of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city. Post World War II developments such as fresh meadows have been providing quality and affordable housing for three generations. The task now before us is to emulate these models. We need housing for all income and age groups. The opportunities are there. We are about to embark on a plan for (inaudible) on the Rockaway Peninsula. Rockaway is an example of the best and unfortunately the worst in city planning and policy. It has the most incredible beachfront in the country. Think about it. People pay a fortune to spend five hours in traffic, stay in overpriced accommodations and wait two hours for a $40.00 breakfast in the Hamptons. Here we have a chance to develop the Rockaways into an urban oceanfront paradise. It is the same ocean. It is already there. HPD is currently reviewing proposals that will breathe new life into this community in the form of housing, commercial development and recreation. Else where in Queens we have provided thousands of units of affordable housing. Many in conjunction with the New York City partnership. Many of these homes are two family dwellings that reasonably priced and through the rental units help the purchasing keep their costs down by providing a residence for young people just starting out. Given the choice I think New York's especially young families prefer to buy here and not commute to exit 68 on the Long Island Expressway. We need to insure they can do this.

We have the ability to retain jobs and build housing but we can educate our children so they can get jobs and afford housing. This in my mind is the biggest challenge before us. Not just in Queens but in the city as a whole. The next Borough President must follow through on the work we have started. That is building enough schools so every child has the opportunity for quality education. A few years ago we took issues with the Board of Education budget that while on paper looked good it was in reality an empty document that gave us a great deal of high risk money that will never materialize.

One of the benefits of being in city government as long as we have is the ability to know what money is real and what money is shall I say translucent. After some serious discussions we were able to get real money committed to Queens schools with the help of mayor Giuliani. Now having money is the first step. Lighting the fire under the Board of Education is the second step. We actually formed a war room where we regularly bring all stake holders together to track the progress of school construction. It seems like a very simple idea, right? But it was the first time all parties began meeting on a regular schedule where they were accountable to us. This has proved fruitful and we are currently building or expanding new schools. Unfortunately, the down side is we are still thousands of seats short. In order to alleviate the problem we look for sites all over the borough. This has made us an unpopular figure in some neighborhoods but we defy any civic minded person to look us in the eye and say a Staples office supply store is more important to our borough than a new school. Shopping centers, housing, schools, parks are all visible. Less visible, but just as vital are infrastructure needs. Basic needs such as sewers are finally making their way to parts of Queens. For years the communities in southeast Queens (inaudible) each rain storm. This neighborhood should have had sewers years ago. We are proud to say we are close to completing a massive project that will improve the lives of over three hundred thousand residents in southern Queens.

Mass transit is not an important issue for most of the country though it should. One way we can get out of the energy crisis is to build larger and better transportation systems so that people do not have to drive everywhere. The air train from Jamaica to JFK International Airport will do much in alleviating highway congestion although we do believe there should be a one seat ride from Penn Station and not a two seat ride and we are making that come to fruition. Now we need to fast-track a one seat drive to LaGuardia Airport the busiest airport in the country for business. On the subject of airports I mentioned earlier they are both a blessing and a curse. We in Queens put up with the noise and traffic so the airport supplied over seventy-five thousand people on site and more than double that in related industries off site. We need to keep both JFK and LaGuardia competitive or else we'll lose businesses, then jobs.

Last week we cut a ribbon on the new International Arrivals Building. This kind of structure is a centerpiece of the re-energized JFK Airport. Other infrastructure needs are a new intermobile {sic} facility at Long Island City. The confluence of train lines from Long Island, New Jersey and New England would be a tremendous catalyst to western Queens development. Most people don't realize Jersey Transit still has their trains off peak in the Sunnyside yards. Other infrastructures needs, our waterfront is one of the most beautiful in the world, but it is only in the last few years would you know that. (inaudible) in the Queen West development is a gem with this (inaudible) the East River in midtown Manhattan that are extraordinary. Take a walk around the riverfront there and you'll understand our horror of the New York Power Authority's decision to put a new power plant on the waterfront directly south of the Queensboro Bridge. Yes, we need power plants. We supply the majority of the power to the rest of the city. Queens provides about fifty percent of the power to New York City now. But their alternatives is one of the best sites in Queens. Yes, Manhattan is a wonderful place for theater, art, dance and film, but is it the only place for culture? Of course not. For many years Queens and the other boroughs were dismissed by the cultural elite as back waters of little significance. In the past twenty years we changed all that with world class solutions such as the Hall of Science, P.S.1 and the soon to be Museum of Modern Art Queens Museum. The expansion of these and other museums are important to our family. They allow Queens residents to take advantage of world class exhibits closer to home and of course they can afford. We have also made it a point to fund programs for many of our ethnic groups. We are extremely proud of the fact that Queens is the most diverse county in the United States. We in Queens have demonstrated that the best way to bridge the cultural divide with others is by sharing music, food and folklore. Accordingly we have made it priority of assisting many ethnic and cultural organizations to do this important work so that our city can become a smaller and more compassionate place. I hope this conference will help you look at Queens in a new way. Many of our speakers are going into depth on the issues I've highlighted. There is a lot to cover. We are booming, but as I have noted we need to address critical issues before they become insurmountable problems. I invite you to share the diversity, strength and energy of Queens. We are real New York City. To witness firsthand take the number seven line out to Jackson Heights. Have a Peruvian cocktail at (inaudible) then head for dinner the Chicken Tiki Marsala at Deli Palace and follow it up with cannoli at Cafe Greco.

Again, my thanks to the Newman Institute at Baruch College for putting this together. We'll all learn from experts this morning and the next two Friday mornings. The more knowledge we attain, the more we accomplish. Thank you very much.

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: Thank you. I am wondering if I could ask the four speakers for the second part of the morning to join us up here. Alexander Federbush, Adam Friedman, William DeCota and William Maloney. In terms of your planning your own tolerance and patience we want you that look upon this as a Friday morning in June. Take your jacket off, relax. We want you to be with us in the morning. There will be a break about 10:45 or 11:00 for some food, breakfast at that point. So enjoy. We hope you will be able to see.

Alexander Federbush a native New Yorker living in Manhattan. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's (inaudible) began in the printing and publishing business and became president of the company's leading manufacturer and service supplier to the legal and financial publisher of North America. Following the sale of his company Mr. Federbush entered the real estate business as an owner and manager of commercial properties. In 1998 he joined Queens west. He assumed primary upgrading responsibilities for the corporation in September 2000 and was named its president in January 2001. Please join me in welcoming Alexander Federbush.

MR. FEDERBUSH

ALEXANDER FEDERBUSH: Thank you. Queens West is the single largest waterfront development project under way in the City of New York today. Queens West has seventy four and a half acres and is situated along the East River shore line directly across from the United Nations. Unobstructed, it offers spectacular views of the most famous skyline in the world. When complete Queens West will have twenty buildings with two million square feet of office space. Three hundred and fifty thousand square feet of retail space. Six thousand apartments. Two schools and possibly a hotel. By subway way it is only four minutes from Grand Central Station and eight minutes from Times Square. Access to Long Island Railroad is a block away. The entrance to the Midtown Tunnel and the Long Island Expressway are within a few blocks as well. With all the highways, bridges, tunnels, railroads, subways, airports and ferries -- we are getting ferry service back -- that connect the world to Queens West. This development has the potential to become a viable commercial entity that will enhance the entire borough. Any infrastructure that is not already in place Queens West is prepared to build. We'll build new roads and install state of the art water, gas, electric and telecommunication services. The most exciting features we'll build are the new parks on twenty acres we set aside. More than half these acres running along the waterfront will be highlighted by a magnificent one and a quarter mile (inaudible). So much for park infrastructure. Another important asset of Queens West is what I call the soft infrastructure. The regulatory approvals that are already in place. Complicated procedures such as land use review environmental reviews and zoning changes have all been completed by Queens West. We have done this because it saves developers an enormous am of time and reduces their cost. Thus Queens West is able to offer premium ready to build (inaudible) with most of the regulatory issues satisfied. Potential of Queens West derived not only from the natural and developed assets to the Borough of Queens but also from our unique coalition of committed partners. After all Queens West is a joint effort of New York State, City the Port Authority and the office of the Queens Borough President.

Further adding to the enterprise value of Queens West is our partnership with private developers. Partnerships which allow developers to build for a profit and allow us to leverage every dollar of our investment by a factor of ten to twelve times. We can confidently project that the investment of the public partners will result in over two and a half billion dollars of investment by our private developer partners. Deployment of this capital in turn will create fourteen thousand construction jobs and a minimum of a half a billion dollars in wages and salaries. Ultimately, we anticipate creating ten thousand new full time jobs and generating hundreds of millions of dollars from ongoing economic activity some of which will flow back as tax revenues to both the city and state. In the end this project should help foster a renewal of the Long Island City area stimulating local economic growth. Indeed, Queens West is poised transformed the borough into a world class international, commercial and residential center. In the not distance future do not be surprised to read Manhattan real estate ads that boast great views of the world famous Queens skyline.

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: Thank you. The transcript of this morning and the next two mornings events will be available on the Newman Institute website and the remarks and images will be available in the issue of Properties, the Institute's journal which will be devoted to the subject of the future of Queens.

Adam Friedman is Executive Director of the New York Central Retention. Its mission is to strengthen the New York City manufacturing sector, save manufacturing jobs and build a capacity network participant to engage in economic development. It has established an early warning network of over a hundred and fifty local development organizations, labor unions banks, real estate managers and other stakeholders interested in the well being of the city's manufacturing section. It has also published three studies. The Little Manufacturer That Could in 1999. Outlining the status of manufacturing in New York City based on a survey of two hundred and fifty companies. (inaudible) again in 1999 and assessment of the impact it needs on food manufacturing center in the city and in 2001 The Garment Center, Still In Fashion, a study of Manhattan special garment center district.

Mr. Friedman joined NYIRN after fifteen years of economic development. He was director of economic development for borough presidents Ruth Messenger and David Dinkins and formerly president of the Garment Industry Development Corporation. Please join me in welcoming Adam Friedman.

MR. FRIEDMAN

ADAM FRIEDMAN: Thank you. I am going to give you a brief background on the New York Industrial Retention Network and then talk a little about the competitive advantages I see that Queens picking up on many of the things Peter eluded to and then I hope offer some strategies for capitalizing on those advantages. But first a bit about myself. I actually grew up in the city and I went to the United Nations International School and it is a private school in the city and it has made their claims by providing a high quality (inaudible) from the diversity of the students and faculty more than students, students from more than sixty countries. By virtue of our superior language skills and our sensitivity to cultural differences we would be better prepared to compete in a shrinking interconnected global world. This is Newtown High School in Elmhurst. This public high school is probably more diverse than the United international school. It offers courses in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Spanish. I am sure the graduates are very well prepared for tomorrow's world economy. More about that in a moment. As you heard (inaudible) is a city wide economic development organization that is dedicated to strengthen the manufacturing sector. Our particular approach or methodology has been to establish this early warning network which is now over a hundred and fifty local developing groups, labor unions, real estate managers, banks, all the people who have direct contact with manufacturers. They alert us when a company is in trouble, at risk. We go in. We diagnose its needs and we assemble the right team of services and programs that help that company and then manage that intervention. Over the past four and a half years we have had contact with seven hundred and forty companies employing almost twenty-two thousand people. I think the major competitive advantage for Queens really is the diversity of its people. Queens has proximity to Manhattan. New Jersey has proximity to Manhattan. Queens has lower cost space than Manhattan, but it is only come competitive with New Jersey if its very deeply subsidized. Subways versus the Path Train I think slight advantage for Queens, but New Jersey is on the main land so it has lower transportation cost. So I think it is really a wash. The real competitive advantage lies with its people. What is that diversity? As you previously heard there are people from a hundred countries speaking a hundred and sixty-seven languages in Queens. It is by far the most diverse borough. No group represents more than a third of the population. That diversity is increasing. Both Hispanic and Asian groups population is increased by more than a hundred and fifty thousand people over the past ten years. The many groups that make that -- excuse me. Within that Hispanic and Asian population the main groups that make that up are also diversifying and expanding. This is it reflected in the economic structure of the borough. There more than two thousand Asian owned businesses and more than sixteen hundred Hispanic owned businesses. So how could you capitalize on diversity? I think that's really a hard question. I know there are a lot of developers here who think building a building is difficult. But building a building is easy compared with realizing the potential of a county of two million people speaking a hundred and sixty-seven languages. I would like to offer three strategies of how diversity creates opportunity for economic growth. The first is international trade. The second is in domestic exports and beginning to think of Queens as an incubator for new products and the third has to do with developing new types of land use mechanisms to maintain diversity.

The first strategy. Queens as a resource for international trade. New York City is a global city. That means not only do New York companies compete in a global market but New York companies are the purveyors new ideas and new production. They provide the services that allow the world economy to function. For example there are more than two hundred and eighty foreign bank branches in New York City and remember the first point about two thousand Asian owned businesses and sixteen hundred Hispanic owned businesses. Nationally small firms are the fastest growing segment of the export sector and we are seeing dramatic increases in trade to Asia and Latin America.

I would like to propose an investment in an international trade center for Queens. What would that do? First of all, it would recognize and make exclusive public policy that the diverse international community is desirable. Immigrants are not a drain on the city. They are a valued resource and they help to revitalize the city.

Second, it would create office space and conference space which I think is desperately needed in Queens. As we travel around the borough you can see where offices are pushing out residents and I think it says something about the market dynamics, the demand. It would also provide video conference facilities to facilitate marketing, sales and other transactions. It would co-locate city and state federal agencies that help local businesses to engage in international trade.

Finally, it would create awareness and opportunities for relationships between the larger consulting firms in Manhattan and the smaller firms that have sprung up all over Queens and have networks work abroad. The second strategy for capitalizing on diversity is beginning to look at Queens as a great incubator for new crops. What are those people from a hundred different companies doing? Well, you know, they are basically trying to eat the same food, listen to the same music and buy the same types of materials, clothing and furniture reflecting the styles of their countries of origin. Therefore they are creating dozens of sub markets. Those sub markets are incubating new production potentially for the U.S. market. For example, (inaudible) did a study of the food manufacture incentive. This is not retailing. This is not restaurants. Food manufacturing is a rapidly growing segment of the manufacturing sector. There are fifteen thousand people employed in food manufacturing and based on our surveys and interviews we are projecting an additional thousand jobs over a two year period. That growth is driven by domestic export. The sale of products that are made in New York to consumers outside of the New York region. Forty-nine percent of the companies we met with -- these are all small companies -- derive forty percent of their sales from outside of the region. Nationally consumers are demanding more and more specialty ethnic food products. That market is expected to grow like fifty percent over the next ten years. New York City is well positioned to capitalize on those national consumer trends. They have dozens of small food companies supplying the sub market in Queens. What they need is help to cross over from serving a local market to a regional and national market. (inaudible) recently launched a food marketing assistance program that was sponsored by Con Edison and within three or four days of sending out the material we were over subscribed and I mention that program just to illustrate the type of assistance that I think is needed to capitalize on Queens as an incubator. We need to think differently about how we deliver economic development services that make us entrepreneurs. I've heard that from a number of people and some are consistent and with our own experience as to somewhat more insulated population. There are language issues. There also may be hesitancy to approach government for assistance regardless of their legal status because that's just not how it was done in their country of origin. Therefore, there is a need to reach out to more of the immigrants associations and bilateral chambers and really use them to deliver services.

The third strategy I wanted to mention to capitalize on diversity was the need to recognize the importance of manufacture and the need to preserve space for moving. Not everyone is going to write software or write business plans. Queens has many highly trained people, but less than 25 percent of the adult population has a college degree. Manufacturing is the send largest component within the Queens economy. Almost fifty thousand people employed in manufacturing and those fifty thousand jobs spin off another thirty-eight thousand. It pays relatively high wages. The average wage is over thirty thousand dollars. That's over twice the wages in retailing and I think there are real chances for success here. There has been growth in the jewelry production in Queens and if you're going to capitalize on Queens' abilities to incubate new production we need a place for those products to actually be made and for those companies to grow.

How to preserve space for manufacturing I think is a very difficult and hot issue. It is being played out today in Long Island City. As you heard City Planning has proposed and is moving through the process of rezoning thirty-seven square blocks is where the core area of Long Island City. We support that up zoning. We recognize the need for more office space but at the same time we recognize that it is going to have a negative impact on the surrounding hundred plus blocks of central space. This is a blurry map of Long Island City. What it shows is the area that is around here is what is being rezoned and in here it has a relatively low density central jobs. But if you look around it has an extraordinarily high density of central jobs. I have a couple of pictures here. This is not virgin forest. There are seventeen thousand central jobs in Queens. That is the most dense concentration of manufacturing outside of Manhattan's garment center and printing area of lower Manhattan. It is also a heavily unionized area, meaning those jobs tend to pay better and tend to have health benefits and other types of benefits. Finally, one of the things that came out at the hearing that City Planning conducted on rezoning is how organic this community is. There was testimony from one furniture manufacturer Dakota Jackson and he talked about how he uses a wood working company and a metal working company and a fabric company all within walking distance of where he is located and he is actually in the area of being rezoned and he rents this space. You know that's a very delicate sort of balance. They all derive a certain synergy from being clustered together. We think the threat to this adjoining area is very real. For example an owner of a building that is not rezoned may be two or three blocks away from the area that is being rezoned is still going to see all that office development going on and he is going to want to attract those office tenants and he is going to convert this space. The city hasn't done anything to dampen that type of real estate pressure in the area that everyone agrees that should remain for light manufacturing. So how might the city encourage office development but preserve the nearby manufacturing space? One technique that has been used in other cities is planned manufacturing districts or manufacturing development zones. In those areas the conversion of manufacturing space for office use is limited. For example might be mapped as an over lay in the M Zone. We propose the creation as of a task force for Long Island City which would include all the stake holders, manufacturers, labor, the property owners to develop strategies to retain manufacturing in the surrounded areas outside the new commercial core. Not only would this approach save jobs, but it could lead to a new type of central business district. One that is stable and combines a mix of uses. Rather than pushing out manufacturing, the zoning would promote a synergy between the service industries and the manufacturing industries by keeping them in close proximity. Let me just sum up, I think the wealth of Queens lies in the diversity of its people. They are a tremendous asset for advancing New York City's position as a global city. They make Queens a great incubator for new products. I think the city's land use and economic development policies should both nurture and capitalize on that diversity and one of the challenges is how to encourage a new type of CBD that is home to both idea based and production based industries. Thank you.

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: I think you can see that one of the things that really distinguishes each of the events in the New York Real Estate Forum of the Institute is the careful preparation that each of the speakers must do. This is for those of you who are here for the first time in order to comply with the requirement for a presentation. It is extraordinary and constitutes one of the great reservoirs of knowledge that is building up across the city about the things going on that effect the future.

William DeCota was appointed Director of Aviation December 1999 for the port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He leads a career of staff of nearly a thousand employees for the management of Kennedy International, Newark International and LaGuardia Airport which together comprise the world's largest aviation system. As well as the downtown Manhattan heliport. Previously he served as Deputy Director of Aviation, Assistant Director for Business and Properties as well as Manager of Business and Financial Services for the Aviation Department. Prior to joining the Port Authority Mr. DeCota was a business analyst responsible for analyzing financial position of small businesses located in the New York metropolitan region. Please join me in welcoming William DeCota.

MR. DECOTA

WILLIAM DECOTA: Okay. Thank you. I am joined by Lisa Skully of my staff. She's Assistant Director for External Affairs. One of the key people who is really helping to preserve Kennedy and LaGuardia Airport. Two of Queens strategic assets. I am really pleased to be able to speak to you about both those airports. They are very near and dear to my heart. I've worked for the Port Authority for about twenty years and I am going to tell you about the renaissance that's occurring and a lot of the great things happening in the Borough of Queens as a result of the airport existences. In their most elemental forms they are transportation centers. They are just exchange points from where people get to a variety of land vehicles and air vehicles the same way. But the reality is they are centers of commerce and employment. Peter talked a little bit about that. They generate huge, huge economic activity. They are second largest I believe employer of Queens. There about three hundred and eighty thousand jobs. There is thirteen billion dollars worth of wages. Forty-one billion dollars worth of sales that is generated just by those two airports.

The theme today is all about commercial and institutional expansion. When it comes to airports you shouldn't think about expansion in the physical sense but rather in terms of the great benefits that reach far beyond the airport boundaries and that's some of what I would like to talk about. In 1947 the Port Authority was asked by the City of New York to take over the operation of airports and at that time there were a lot of post World War II priorities that were competing from municipal funds and the regional plan association very correctly predicted that the immigration of the airport as a regional system would have tremendous benefits. To date the Port Authority has invested about three billion dollars in these airports. In today's terms that's about 8 billion dollars worth of work. The fact is, there is a lot more to be done and we are not finished with the things that need to be done. The airports in Queens are in the midst of a renaissance. There is about eleven billion dollars worth of investment that is currently ongoing. And under taking of that magnitude of course doesn't really just happen. It all starts with a vision and what you see up here is part of what your vision is. We have a lot of words to describe our vision. Here you see we talk about providing the region and with unsurpassed global access. The fact is there are more flights and more destinations from directly from our airport in queens than any other airport system in the entire world making sure that we can keep those airports the gateways to the world. To maintain their dominant status that I just described. It is both with regard to passengers and cargo that that's true. To make sure we have the appropriate sensitivity to the environment and the communities that we serve. There is no doubt about the fact that airports have tremendous positive benefits but unfortunately the activities that are generated there and the activities (inaudible) to there have negative impacts on the community. Those are things that have to be very aggressively addressed. The fact is the airports are the world largest construction sites. That's not just my words. That's the words of many other people as I like to say even with their feet on the ground it is very easy to see that new airports are rising and those are airports that are going to guarantee travelers convenience and accessibility and safety. That's what this is all about. It is not an understatement to say that JFK has more investment ongoing than any other airport system anywhere. Nine to ten billion dollars worth of work JFK has more investment than it took to build the new Denver International Airport by about four times. So it is really a phenomenal set of projects that are ongoing. We are essentially rebuilding the airports from top to bottom, from inside out, from the grounds up as I said. We are continuing to rebuild them. Whether it is the utilities underground or whether it is the new control tower that soars 321 feet above the airport, the fact is we are building everything between there. We have got new terminals. We have got easy to use roadways. We have got a brand new train system that I'll talk about. We have got parking structures and new cargo facilities.

Let me start off by just talking a little about what is going on at each of the airports. And let me start off with the dazzling new terminals. Last Thursday we christened the new terminal four at JFK. The new international facility that Peter mentioned in his presentation. It is a 1.4 billion dollar terminal. A major public private partnership between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. (inaudible) who run the Amsterdam Airport, Elcore, major developer here in the United States and has done a lot of big projects here in New York. It is without a doubt based upon what we have heard, a terminal that is met with incredibly rave reviews. It was called by the president when it was showcased last week the crown jewel. A showcase of innovation. It was referred to as the terminal that invites people to be comfortable and where time flies faster. I think that's what it is all about in terms of encouraging people to come here to take advantage of all the trade, travel, commerce and economic activity that are here to provide fabulous facilities that they are going enjoy traveling through.

This is the brand new terminal one, two years old. It opened in May of '98. It is home to some of the finest airlines in the world. Air France, Korea and Japan airlines. It is also the home to some award winning retail and concession spaces. This is an interior shot of the terminal. You can see how absolutely incredible that facility is. It is absolutely revolutionized the way the people check in and the way people travel now. There is a whole bunch more to come. American Airlines and the Port Authority are in the midst of constructing a one 1.6 billion dollars mega terminal on the sites of what were originally terminals eight and nine. That should be completed by 2006. There is no doubt about the fact that Queens Airports are old as I described. This whole redevelopment program is about bringing new life and rebirth to those older facilities. This is an interior shot of the terminal eight facility. It is going to have fifty-eight gates. It is larger than entire airports like Indianapolis, Sacramento, Honolulu, Reagan National Airport and other new terminals are in the works too, for Delta Airlines, United Airlines. The fact is by the end of this decade every single terminal at JFK will be completely replaced.

We are also reconfiguring and extending and modernizing miles and miles of roadway. The fact is this is an inter mobile experience for travelers. Got to get people onto the airport and off the airport and access both in the air and on the ground are absolutely critical. Roadways, as I described, are a key piece of that. In the 1960's it was great because travelers could leisurely circumnavigate the nine terminals of the central terminal area. They could admire the architecture. They could enjoy the fountains. The fact is at that time an airport like Kennedy Airport only handled four or five million passengers. Last year it handled about thirty-four million passengers. Those days of sort of the leisurely travel, the idea that we could bask in space because we have five thousand acres of land at Kennedy are really over. New airports are built with thirty-five thousand acres of land. People want to get in. People want to get out. Well we have to make that possible in what is really a constrained environment and we have reconstructed twenty-six miles of roadway at JFK just the last couple of years. This is the main entrance into the airport where about sixty-five percent of the travelers come onto the facility. This is the Van Wyck Expressway. I like to refer fear to it as our version of the Champs Ellysses. One of the things, it is hard to see from here, but if you do access Kennedy, is the fact that with the reconstruction of the Van Wyck Expressway we have had acres of landscaping. Part of the traveler experience is going to be made easier by the fact that they are going to feel more comfortable. They are going to see plants and trees and shrubs. They are going to see flags down the middle of the Van Wyck Expressway that greet them from every single county that is represented by flights that come in and out of that airport. You can see here says JFK, where America greets the world with a clock and with informational messages. But giving passengers that welcoming feeling as they come onto the airport and off the airport. The fact is, airports are the first and last things that people see in New York giving them that opportunity to see how fabulous New York is when they are at one of the New York Airports.

At LaGuardia the same things, we have improved miles and miles of roadway. This is the central terminal building area which was not an easy thing. LaGuardia is one of the most valuable scarce resources in the entire world. Scarce because there is only seven hundred acres of land. One of the smallest airports in the world. Valuable in terms of tremendous demand for that facility. Of course, the legendary problems with flight delays at LaGuardia are probably no secret to people here in this room. That's all a reflection of the fact that people want to access that airport. Earlier this year we finished some of the east end roadway project. Also a few years back with U.S. Airways opened up the fabulous now (inaudible) air ways terminal. Fact is the same kind of program as JFK. So helping get people to the airport as I mentioned is one of our top priorities and one of our top priorities in that regard is the new air train system. You can see here a photo of an air train vehicle. By next fall the first phase of air train will begin to offer passengers a way to get to JFK bypassing all the unpredictable highways. Any of you who are fans of Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry has done several television programs where he has parodied the difficulty getting to JFK. They are absolutely legendary. An air train which is an 8.1 mile system will ultimately help us do that. It is going to link all eight terminals because we'll have fewer terminals when the redevelopment is done because we are consolidating a lot of the smaller terminals with fewer facilities. Link all those eight terminals together and we'll end up, as this shows, having stations.

This is the terminal seven station that will directly provide access right to each of those facilities. This is the rendering of the Howard Beach Station. This is an area where remote parking and rental cars and mass transit hubs are located. This is a fabulous new terminal. It is a wonderful view here from the Howard Beach Community. Just another example of the kind of amenities that your train will provide when it is actually opened. This is a rendering of Jamaica Stations. About a year after the Howard Beach Station opens, we'll see the rail service expanded to Jamaica. A lot of you have seen or been affected by all the construction on the Van Wyck Expressway. At this location passengers will very easily access the Long Island Railroad, subway lines, scores of buses by literally bringing people to Jamaica, we accomplish lots of things.

One is we set the stage for the eventual direct link of service to Penn Station from JFK and this is just a rendering of the new Farley Post Office Penn Station project. We also serve as a catalyst for other development. Recently the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation released its report, a three year long study called Vision for Jamaica Center. They predict that a hotel and office complex and even crew quarters for airlines could be built at the air train station. One concern that we are still confronted with and I eluded to it a second ago is the fact that our delays that plague our airports and plagued us because of airline over scheduling and because of the small constraint size of the airport we have got and the huge demands relative to that. We have been working with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop policies so we can deal with congestion. One newspaper reporter described what the Port Authority's actions have been as having moxied {sic} as a really cool word. It is a word that means facing adversity and challenge with high spirits. In addition we are making very specific improvement to each of the two New York airports to try to help eliminate delay. Some of the things we are working on are new control towers at both the airports. Rehabilitation of the taxi ways. This is the new control tower at JFK and we are strengthening and widening the taxi ways and runways to try to provide more efficient access to the airport so passengers don't suffer those terrible delays.

For meeters and greeters, something I want to talk about because a lot of our customers aren't just taxi driven, they are not just cargo shippers, they are also meeters and greeters. There are more meeters and greeters, in fact, than they are usually passengers because the fact is people go to the airport to wish somebody well and to wish them a safe trip and the fact is convenient parking is one of those things that is not a luxury for them. It is a necessity. There are new parking garages everywhere. This is a rendering of the new green parking garage at JFK which is a very short walk for customers using terminals one, two or three. This is just one of five brand new parking garages that are serving the airport.

Likewise at LaGuardia we are enhancing and improving the central terminal garage at LaGuardia. Cargo is of paramount importance. I've mentioned it a couple of times. We are ranked fifth in terms of cargo tonnage at our airport and we continue to work aggressively to maintain and attract new cargo. Last fall Korean airlines opened up their new hundred and two million dollar state of the art cargo facility. The past ten years more than 1.3 million square feet of new cargo space has been built at JFK and there is another seven hundred thousand feet underway. That means roughly two thirds of all the cargo space at this airport will have been rebuilt. The fact is the improvement program isn't just bricks and water. I could brag forever about construction, but I would also like to talk about world class customer service. A lot of architecture, a lot of flourish of color, but more importantly you could see how getting these clean and unobstructed, absolutely beautiful landscape vistas are critical to the customer experience. Signage, when have seventeen different terminals you have a hundred and fifty different airlines. You have a three hundred and fifty different service providers. What you need is easy to read, understandable signage uniformed throughout all the airports. That is it one of our goals. Regardless of the terminal you are in you are going to have to go find signange.

Award winning food and beverage. One of the highest priorities of customers. This happens to be Figs Restaurant at LaGuardia. This is an award winning restaurant of the chef Todd English. More than two hundred red jacketed customer service reps all throughout the airport who are multilingual who can help in providing information and signage direction who have a mission to help you that if you look perplexed and if you come within a couple of feet of them they have to make eye contact. If you come closer than that they have to actually establish verbal communication. What is the primary question people ask? Where's the restroom? But if you put all the pieces together the fact is what is happening at the New York airports will mean for our travelers efficiency, safety, comfort convenience and it does mean prosperity and big business for the region and what does it really mean for Queens? Well, it means an awful lot. The aviation industry is concentrated here in Queens and office jobs that exceed the local average wage. It offers a range of employment opportunity from highly skilled jobs to management level positions. You can see from this slide, three quarters of the New York City's aviation employment is here in Queens. It is the second largest industry in Queens after health services. About eleven percent of the total wages come from airports and you can see a very high average wage in terms of the kinds of jobs created there. The Port Authority and its tenants often tap Queens for employment opportunities. In fact, there are twenty thousand Queens residents who work at the Queens airport and Queens has the biggest share of both Kennedy and LaGuardia of any other county in New York City. There are lots of jobs associated with airports which I think is key and they not just at the airport. That's something I would just like to spend one second talking about before I close.

The fact is when you think of airport jobs you think of flight crews. You think of ticket agents. Well, those are all true, but those are not the only kinds of jobs. For instance, when you think of jobs you think about the fact there are three firms in Queens that provide uniforms to airport tenants. Think about airport experience. How many uniforms are there out there? Like this is an example of a Richmond Hill company uniform for industry. There is it another from Long Island City. So that's just one example.

We are also looking to try to provide for the next generation of people who will accept and take leadership roles in airport jobs. One of the things we did was make a significant contribution to training future airport managers by providing money to York College in Jamaica to establish an aviation management program. Very active in the College of Aeronautics. Very active in Aviation High School where we established a satellite campus for students who in their senior year can work on internships in aircraft maintenance. When you think about the eleven billion dollars worth of work I just described in terms of construction you tend to think about heavy construction. Like of (inaudible) of Whitestone, Queens who's (inaudible) building the air train system. But you may not think of, for instance, Jamaica Blueprint. Now, that's a very interesting company. It is a woman owned business that provided (inaudible) with all the construction drawings associated with the guide way and stations associated with air train projects. The two billion dollar cargo industry at the airport brings to mind things like that. Trucks and warehouses, but you don't necessarily think about how that material is packaged for shipment. Well, Energy Packaging of Floral Park is a great example. It has 27 direct contracts with tenants at JFK to provide boxes, cartons, paper and things like that and the list goes on. Queens based firms provide everything from security at the airport to auto parts, to photocopying services, painters, elevator repair work, office furniture, pest control, promotion material. You just name it. It is coming from Queens. The fact is, it is not the end as they all like to say. It is really just the beginning. Last year the four hundred and thirteen contracts that were awarded to local (inaudible) they were valued at fifty four million dollars directly by airport employers. We want to see more of -- we are working very aggressively toward that. It is only just the beginning as we re-imagine as I like to say, JFK and LaGuardia and position them to serve the great borough and in this great City of New York. But you don't have to imagine. All you have to do is go out and see it because the reality is there. It is really happening.

Let me close by saying you may recognize the names of Kennedy and LaGuardia which are two of America's most veritable airports and which are actually legends in their own right, but I think you are not going to recognize the face of these two great airports as you go out there and take a look at it. The fact is, we are very proud of the legacy of those airports we are very excited about the future and very thrilled to be a part of this great borough. Thank you.

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: William Maloney is the Project Director for the Museum of Modern Art responsible for all the museum's real estate projects. The projects include a major expansion and renovation of the museum's 53rd Street facilities and development of a hundred and sixty thousand square foot art study center and storage center in Long Island City that will temporarily house gallery exhibits during the construction of 53rd Street.

Mr. Maloney is also responsible for additional lease office facilities in Long Island City and in Manhattan and a storage facility owned by the museum in Long Island City. He oversees all areas affecting the new facilities including design, government approval, budgeting and construction. Prior to joining the museum Mr. Maloney was President and Chief Executive Officer of Rockafellar Center Development Corporation; a subsidiary of the Rockafellar group. He was at Rockafellar group for more than twenty years. Please join me in welcoming William Maloney.

MR. MALONEY

WILLIAM MALONEY: Good morning. I was going to tell you in addition to having big plans in Manhattan, the Museum of Modern Art has big plans in Queens. After I see what the Port Authority is doing I can't tell you that. I do need to tell you a little about my background because you probably all know more about Queens than I do. I grew up in what could have been a different planet than Queens Washington Heights. I was a Yankees fan. We did go to Queens. We used to go to Rockaway Beach on the A train. That lead to my first visit to central Queens to pay a fine if I had more than seventy-two ounces of beer on the beach. What I knew about Queens growing up. I did live in Queens for one year in a Quonset hut. I don't know if you know what those are but they are government houses after the second World War. I knew it as where everybody went out at 9:00 the night before to get the daily news which had a circulation of about five million newspapers in the late forties. But anyway, I just want to explain I am not a Queens expert. Let me tell you about the Museum of Modern Art. The museum is founded in midtown by three very wealthy women in 1929. One of the women was David Rockafellar and Nelson Rockafellar's mother and a few other Rockafellars. These women would have thought an outer borough was the midwest. MoMA's history has been that the rivers had been barriers and they've never gone beyond it. Now I am going to fast forward because that's ancient history. We show -- the Museum of Modern Art shows at any one time a small percentage of its collection. The rest is in storage. It is storage that has some very unusual requirements. There is few facilities and they are very far between and very expensive. Require a very large investment by the museum and we came to the conclusion in the late '90's that we had to own it. Rents, we were wasting money. So we started to look around. We wanted close proximity to our home on 53rd Street. The first place, of course, we looked was Manhattan. First storage facility we looked was in Manhattan. It was just silly. You are spending so much money and it just didn't make sense. This city actually has a pretty excellent transportation network and Queens is so easy to get to. We found there are lots of opportunity and we focused on Queens and found a building I'll talk about in a minute.

Halfway through this process the museum on 53rd Street is going to close. It is very hard to run a museum while you are building. Every day we are running into problems. We make noise. They don't want noise. We make dirt. They don't want dirt. We make vibrations. They don't want vibrations. The museum actually has some graphite pieces on paper. Well, you can imagine what vibrations do to them. So we decided we had to close down 53rd Street, but the museum didn't feel it had to leave Manhattan. So we spent a lot of the time looking for temporary facilities. We looked all over Manhattan and very expensive and we had trouble finding them. We brought the curators out to what we call MoMA Queens, and they walked into this building and saw the twenty foot, twenty-one foot ceiling heights and they saw the size and they said what are we looking in Manhattan for? This is fabulous. They saw the 7 train right outside. I mean they said this is crazy. This is where we'll go. So we made a decision about a year ago to do our temporary gallery space and it was a wonderful opportunity to be awakened to. We also had an affiliation with P.S.1. You know there is a lot of exciting things going on there. We are doing a lot of work to fix it up. The city has been a great partner in that. They are making a huge contribution and P.S.1 is only going to get better. We help them in a lot of areas, but we still let them do what they do so well.

Let me go back and tell you about MoMA Queens. It is just off Queens Boulevard. It is between 32nd and 33rd. I confess I get confused between street place. Washington Heights was much easier. 174, 175, 176. We have roughly a hundred and sixty thousand square feet. It has three levels at the moment. Two, sixty thousand square foot levels and a twenty thousand square foot basement. We were calling it at one point a mini museum and then we realized a hundred and sixty thousand square feet is actually a big museum. We are going to have more climatized {sic} space and that's where you control not only temperature but humidity. So it is a big undertaking. One of the greatest advantages of the Swingline building was that because of the slope of Queens Boulevard we can load on both floors. They both have street level loading access. That worked beautifully for us. They have large bay sizes. The bay sizes are 25 X 25-. The columns give us a six hundred and twenty-five foot square and there is it one area where there are no columns so there in there 50 X 25. That's great for modern art. You know modern art is big. Not a lot of windows. So it is perfect for us. We actually bought it not with the galleries in mind but really to house the museum's collections. We have some very unusual needs. There are big pieces. There are small pieces. Delicate pieces. There are pieces that live in boxes. Pieces you can put in rough areas. We also have this -- there is a whole new world in art storage the last twenty years. Compact storage. Ways of putting racks together and moving them so you could get in and out of aisles. We bought MoMA Queens, the Swingline building, we are looking at solving our storage needs to 2025. It should do that.

MoMA Queens when it is in its storage facility stage and it may never get quite there, it will have a study facility for scholars to come and look at pieces of art that are on display. These scholars can come into a study area. They'll be able to study it at their leisure. Let me talk about gallery space. We are going to have about twenty-five thousand square feet of gallery space. That's not terribly big, but it is going to be enough to put on some pretty interesting shows. For two and a half, three years this will be the Museum of Modern Art. Our entire collection will be there. Almost all our staff is going to be in this facility or nearby in a factory which will probably go on 47th Avenue where we are renting space. We are going to have a regular series of exhibits beginning with MoMA's collection. In 2003 we are going to have a Picasso show. We are expecting seven hundred and fifty thousand in visitors. That's analyzed business. It wouldn't be quite that much, but we are going to have a lot. We are going to have a cafe and book store. We are going to have a great sign. You are never going to know it is a sign unless you take the 7 train. We've taken the roof (inaudible) and we have painted different things on it and it just looks like different things until the 7 train makes the turn on Queens boulevard and the letters come together and you see MoMA. Then you see the station. You only have about four or five seconds. So we expect to bring a lot of excitement to Queens and we are looking forward to getting part of the community.

Let me tell you what we think we bring to Queens and what we get out of Queens. I mean it is a world class collection of modern art. I am from real estate so I can't answer any questions about the art. We are going to have galleries, study center, activity, we do tends to do a lot of evening events and stuff which can be fun. We are going to bring a lot of excitement. The galleries, we've committed to the Queens government people that if they are economically and operationally feasible we'll keep them. Maybe not quite as big as they are in the next couple of years but if we can make them work. MoMA will be here forever, but the galleries may be open forever, too. We'll bring jobs, investment. I got to tell you building these buildings with climate control is very expensive. We have very little tolerance for temperature changes. So the temperature has to be very tightly controlled as humidity. That means the building has to be sealed real tight. I mean they become very expensive so we are making a big investment there. We'll have a long term presence. We'll be there for a long time both in MoMA Queens, and P.S.1.

What we get from Queens, well, we get a great view of Manhattan but you won't know that. A very supportive business and government community. Government out here hand been terrific. We got a lot of support going for approvals which we needed from Manhattan. We get a lot of help in anything we need to try to make things easier. We are able to maintain our program in what is a growing art community and even though we have a lot of members from Queens we did a study and surprised how many. We view it as an untapped market that we hope to tap into. Both Queens and Long Island. People who may not be going into midtown for a lot of reasons who will come to MoMA Queens.

The last thing I wanted to mention, one of the themes of this group this morning was Facing Midtown. I worked in midtown a long time. So I wanted to make some thoughts I had. This city really does have a great transportation network. I know for years we have looked down on it. But it is really so easy to get around. The subway is not bad at all. I grew up on the subway so I am very happy with it. You can get to Long Island City from midtown before you can get to Chelsea or Soho. A lot of other areas in Manhattan. The real estate market has softened but because we didn't fall into the problems of the late eighties or early nineties when there was an overbuilding all around the country the market is not going to go too far. Still the vacancy rates are very low. So being tied a little bit to midtown isn't so bad. Long Island City is now an option that's considered early on. I think we considered it a little later than we might have today. Anybody looking today if you decide midtown is not -- doesn't have what you need or is too expensive, Long Island City is going to be right up there with other locations near midtown. The economics are improving. Services are growing be and we're happy to be part of Long Island City. We look forward to seeing you all at MoMA Queens.

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: Come back for a moment. We have been struggling with the perennial problem of how technology works at these conferences and Bill brought a wonderful powerpoint presentation with him that we've been struggling to load for the past fifteen minutes having loaded it two or three times in the past two days. This first hour following -- I say this in the best sense of the word -- the politicians, has been really trying to create a framework for the thrust of the opportunities Queens has and some problems Queens has. We heard from the director of -- from the president of Queens West Development about the scope and scale of development which Queens has the potential to support. From Adam Friedman we heard a little about the tension between industrial and office space in Long Island City which is going to continue to be an extraordinary tension regardless of which side the zoning redevelopment of Long Island City achieves in the near future. We heard something about the strategic issues, assets, potential job support of the airports and we heard how West Queens can become the basis for one of the greatest cultural institutions in the city. With that sort of background we'd like to go into now in the next session, two case studies; one on Long Island City and one on Hunters Point, Queens West that will go into some further detail about what the issues are in these two areas. What we'll do is do the next segment on Long Island City with the next three speakers and then take a very short break. Then come in and finish on Hunters Point and then again, an overall assessment on regional needs and local opportunities.

John Young has worked for the New York City Department of Planning since 1987. As director he has worked to propose creation of Long Island City District with the Public Land Use and Environmental Review Process. Please join me in welcoming John Young.

MR. YOUNG

JOHN YOUNG: Thank you, Henry. It is gratifying and a very honorable privilege to discuss the changes for Long Island City that are not only part of increasing awareness the economic and cultural contribution of Long Island City. But again part of the increasing awareness of this role that Queens can play in the city's economic, social and cultural fabric. It is a formidable past and a humbling one to summarize the complicated zoning proposal. Even more so that proposal is innovative as this one is and because in this audience I see quite a number of familiar faces. The experts and community officials and elected officials who participate in the development of this plan. It is all the more challenging to try to do this in ten minutes, but I am happy to try.

This proposal is part of a combination of nearly two decades of planning activities and really part of a legacy of more than a hundred and thirty years of evolving ambitions and visions for Long Island City. I just actually want to start by following up on the comments of the previous speaker on MoMA Queens and note that recently I became aware of comments that the architect for that facility in Long Island City had described this building they are developing there and his impressions of Long Island City. He felt that it had sort of an in between landscape and I think you can sort of see that from the photograph on the screen. It is not an absolutely finished and urbane city scape but he feels it is a landscape that is about becoming a utilitarian in many ways and he likens it to that quintessential American idea of progress that it is a part of the city that has been in flux for some time and it is certainly not static and it is now really part of a collective vision we are embarking on this rezoning proposal. It is an art that has a variety of street scapes, many of them low because again these are fairly utilitarian structures and it is an area that has evolved through a number of technological innovations. In the 19th century Long Island City was a (inaudible). It was a county then. We hadn't merged with the city. It featured a bustling waterfront and with the western terminal to Long Island Railroad and then early part of the 20th century the Sunnyside Yard complex was developed and along the rail complex were many warehouse facilities developed that had direct access to those rail lines. It is -- the city had at that point, a need for heavy manufacturing. It was an area that had land and the infrastructures to support that. So at that time a lot of buildings developed that were used for heavy manufacturing and large scale production. Today, however, its economic activity has brought and it includes industrial warehouse and related uses and also includes production of soft goods. Film and television studios. Support services such as building and electrical contractors. Commercial offices, such as the former (inaudible) the Queens Atrium Corporate Center and the classrooms at LaGuardia College. This trend toward greater diversity and activity mirrors the city's overall experience during the post war period and is part of that strategy that Deputy Mayor Harding emphasized about the need for the city's economy to be diversified and this is an area where those trends have been actively occurring.

As I mentioned, the proposed zoning culminates nearly two decades of zoning and economic analyses and land use studies that have recommended establishing a central business district in Long Island City. Part of that is a recognition as a number of other speakers mentioned for the need for a core office center in Queens county. Queens county is at its historical peak in population. 2.2 million people and yet it doesn't have yet three blocks in its entire span, largest borough in the city, over three hundred square miles, only three blocks that really support high density commercial development. It is time that its needs are met and we believe the zoning strategy which is a very targeted zoning strategy helps to meet the needs of the borough but again will provide levels of developments for diversifying physically compact new central business districts, reinforce and enhance the character along Queens plaza and Jackson Avenue and reestablish Long Island City and its core as a gateway and a hub.

Part of these trends are ongoing without the efforts of the rezoning. Again, we had the Deputy Mayor elude to the conversion of the former Brewster Building and it was a building developed, again, in the first two decades of the 20th century and characters, automobiles, fighter planes, heavy manufacturing occurred there. Now it is being retrofitted and refurbished and will be the facility to house over a thousand jobs. Metlife. One of the strategic assets of Long Island City is located near the geographic center of the city and has excellent connections to city and regional mass transit. This slide, of course, will need to be updated soon because of the changes to the MTA. The V lines starting at November will be providing alternative service routes, but we believe working with the MTA that the connections at the Queens Plaza and other transit stations in Long Island City will continue to support the very accessible location of Long Island City and the area of the rezoning.

More immediate context is one that has again a very mixed character. It includes areas just to the north which are mixed residential, commercial and industrial communities; the Queens Bridge Houses. Then to the south and west is the Hunters Point mixed use area. Notable features, of course, again, the Sunnyside Yards which really bisect the area. The Sunnyside Yard will really form the eastern boundary of the proposed zoning area. Within the rezoning area itself there are two major subway nodes that are the focus of a lot of the initiatives to have new zoning regulations for sites around those nodes. This will allow very convenient access, not more than a ten minute walk to get to and from subways to most of the development sites. In addition, the area whether be further accessible with other improvements such as underway with the study of access to LaGuardia and a proposal to have a transit stop for that access at the Queens Bridge Plaza Station. Certainly the new Long Island Railroad station that has been mentioned for President Magnani's remarks that will be an inter-mobile station. That should come on line at 2010 and it will provide access right at Queens Boulevard and the Sunnyside Yards.

The zoning study has come about through many years of study of the area. Really is implementing a key recommendation of a study that came out in 1993 called, A Plan for Long Island City; A Framework for Development. This framework encumbers a hundred and ninety blocks generally located between the East River and 41st Avenue, northern boulevard and the Newtown Creek and there were four land use and zoning recommendations that were in this plan for Long Island City. This is sort of a last -- one of those recommendations which we are implementing previously the areas shown in blue are active industrial areas, were given new zoning treatment in 1995 to support the industrial activity in the Hunters Point area which is just to the west of our rezoning area and the Sunnyside Yards to the east of the yard. Those areas as Adam Friedman pointed out are very active and viable industrial areas. We think the zoning that was put in place in 1995 has actually stabilized a lot of that activity there. The basic tenant of that change was to down zone the area to a very low developmental density. In so doing we believe we are meeting the needs for the type of stations that these niche businesses that Adam described that are actually attracted to and that this area can support. These are fairly small businesses and generally have less than a hundred employees and they do fall under the food production, jewelry, specialty garment manufacturing business sectors that meet the proximity to Manhattan and have fairly defined space needs, but they need to have sort of a horizontal arrangement over their work production and the type of buildings that are generally, again in the area east of the yards and to the west of our rezoning area are these low scale one and two story buildings that the zoning (inaudible) was put in place in 1995 was beginning to facilitate. It removes those speculative development pressures when you have higher density zoning for people that do not continue to lease the properties or don't maintain it in terms of waiting for market forces for further redevelopment. We believe that's very good match between the manufacturing commercial uses that are attracted there, the building stock that's there and the zoning that is in place in 1995. Certainly the other aspects were to support mixed density zoning at Hunters Point, to facilitate the residential development. This leads over to the Queens West site and very south and west of the map and then we are still anticipating to attract new waterfront recreational opportunity with the redevelopments. Not only the Queens west site but sites to the north when there was in 1997 a waterfront access plan adopted by the city which would require new commercial developments on the waterfront to provide public access and that's along the water. The land use within the rezoning area which really builds upon the rezoning that took place in 1986 of the three blocks which are anchored by the Citibank building at Court Square. This land use is a mix of industrial including automotive repair services and that's about half the land area in the thirty-four blocks that are part of the rezoning. Then one-third of the lot area is in commercial use because again this area, as Adam Friedman noted in his diagram, had a fairly low density of industrial jobs, these 34 blocks. The Queens Plaza quarter in fact developed shortly after the development of the Queensboro Bridge as a commercial office quarter to support the surrounding manufacturing area. There were banks and other offices developed there. Also included in this rezoning area are fourteen public parking lots and garages. The largest facility is a facility that the city owns right at Queens Plaza South in Jackson Avenue. It is part of a strategy for spurring redevelopment that the city is seeking tore develop that facility. But clearly that side which is right on top of the Queens Plaza subway hub could be put to better use and the city is reevaluating proposals to redevelop that site.

The existing zoning in the area which is on this map is light industrial. That light industrial has allowed the mix of commercial and light manufacturing uses that are there, but it really doesn't have the density to have new development. As I said the surrounding areas which were down zoned to lower density was sort of the direct development away from those areas and in order to direct development to this very compact central business district we are seeking to increase the densities. The existing zoning is part of (inaudible) Long Island City that already has a special land use regulatory policy known as the Hunters Point mixed use district. What the zoning proposal will do is build upon that area which is shown in gray and extend it to the north and east along the Jackson Avenue quarter and then to Queens Plaza. It will again have a centerpiece which are shown here in creating three sub districts or this new Long Island City mixed use district. The area that is really the focus of the zoning changes, districts two and three the Court Square already exist, the three blocks that were rezoned in 1986 and then the 34 blocks that are being added in subdistrict three, the Queens Plaza subdistrict.

There are goals that we are trying to achieve in developing the regulations that we are putting into place for this Queens Plaza subdistrict and these goals and objectives include mixed use development. We have since the zoning in the area was last changed in 1961 evolved many more creative and targeted resolutions and one of those is a mixed use zoning designation. In that zoning designation naturally it is a zoning designation that the earliest zoning in the city, but when the zoning was revised in 1961 this idea of mixture of residential and industrial commercial activity was done away with because it was felt at the time you really wanted to segregate out those activities. What this mixed use zoning will do is re-allow that type of synergy where you have commercial, light industrial and even residential activities. To have occupations and people working out of office spaces as part of that mixed use development. Clearly there is going to be a strong relationship between the higher densities we're going to allow and transit access. We are hoping that these sites because of their locations, because of the easy access that has been described to getting into Manhattan one or two subway stops, closer than many areas in Manhattan. These sites really will be attractive for reinvestment and redevelopment.

There will also be certain pedestrian improvements clearly in order to have people attracted to the area we want to make sure the amenities of the area becomes more attractive to an area that has a large amount of visible infrastructure and a lot of the traffic moving through it to get onto the Queensboro Bridge and we are underway with a study looking at Queens Plaza and we'll be developing additional recommendations not just zoning which will continue to foster and attract and environment for that type of activity and reinvestment.

I just want to quick low highlight the Queens Plaza sub district which has these thirty-four blocks encompassed in them plus in the very red the three blocks over the Court Square sub district. The highest densities are shown in the salmon color and those are again at the Queens Plaza Subway station. At the eastern end of Queens Plaza, there are six blocks included. The largest of those -- here's something that is called garage site and then there are blocks at Court Square just to the north and along Jackson Avenue from the court Square sub districts. Between those two and on the major corridors of the area Jackson Avenue they are shown in blue making Court Square and Queens Plaza and going along Queens Plaza of course the Queensboro Bridge. That's sort of moderate to high density zoning designation that were applied and hoping that type of zoning will again foster development, but development that sort of really responds to the existing scales of some of the buildings that are there little still allowing sites which are underutilized able which are parking lots, which are automotive repair services. To have those sites be attractive for new investment. These are again some of the requirements that we are putting in place in terms of innovations and fine tuning development controls. We are seeking to create opportunities for pedestrian circulation around Queens Plaza by having sidewalk widenings. Those are shown in gray at the sites which should be redeveloped at Queens Plaza.

I just want to briefly review the type of analysis we had to do for this proposal. That is to take a look at the existing conditions which again is a landscape that is fairly low. Dominated by the Citibank building at Court Square and look at projected development sites and what this area was likely -- what is likely to occur in this area as a consequence of the rezoning. What we analyzed was the addition of about five million square feet new office development. With about three hundred new residential units plus some existing developments which may occur without even the rezoning taking place. One of those sites closest in the forward grounds is the Silver Cup Studio site which has an ability without the rezoning that adds significantly to the structure that's there.

The other sites, again, around the Citibank building are at the Court Square up and then up at the north are the Queens Plaza development sites. Just want to say there are many nuances to this proposal. We have an executive summary which has many of the same documents on it at the city planning website. That is www.nyc.gov/planning. We'd like you to take a look at that.

In closing, I want to say again, Queens has added to sort of peak growth that is happening throughout the borough. There are sixteen billion dollars worth of projects that the Daily News documented this week in the borough. This Long Island City proposal is part of supporting this activity. Long Island City when it was incorporated in 1867, the very fathers envisioned that a regional center. So you think with all the infrastructure improvements that are going on with this rezoning proposal that those dreams of those city fathers are about to be realized. Thank you.

MR. WOLLMAN

WOLLMAN: In your brochure there are two other diagrams that you saw today included in the overall diagram then the Queens Plaza Court rezoning area. Gayle Baron joined the Long Island City Business Development Corporation as Executive Director in September of 1999. The Long Island City Business Development Corporation is a non profit local development corporation dedicated to enhance the business environment of Long Island City. Among its activities the organization provides services and New York City's largest in place industrial part. Its minister is Cyber City at Long Island City; a high technology district designated by New York City's Economic Development Corporation and the award winning industrial waste recycling and prevention program. Prior to joining the Business Development Corporation Mrs. Baron served as Executive Director of the New York Woman's agenda; a coalition of a hundred diverse women's organizations representing a hundred and fifty thousand women. Please join me in welcoming Gayle Baron.

MRS. BARON

GAYLE BARON: Thank you and good morning. Since you already heard a historical perspective of Queens and Long Island City from the Deputy Borough President John Young, I am going to fast forward to an overview of Long Island City today. Today, Long Island is home to over three thousand firms employing close to ninety thousand workers. Of this number, as you heard from Adam Friedman seventeen are in the manufacturing sector. On the horizon is the soon to be realized rezoning of Long Island City's core and the creation of a central business district. At Queens West, which, of course, is Long Island City's major waterfront development project you will learn the ground was broken in December on the second residential structure. Eventually there are going to be thirty-six hundred apartment units there and two and a quarter million square feet of office space. Obviously, that's going to do an awful lot to change the landscape of Long Island City.

Also, as you are learning have a thriving arts community with a growing number of museums including MoMA. We have galleries, film production studios such as Silver Cup and artist groups including over five hundred individual studio artists. New commercial enterprises and firms are eyeing Long Island City as a place of business while industries which already call Long Island City home such as printing are expanding. Cyber City at Long Island City which is our high technology district was launched in October 2000 to attract new high tech and new media firms. This designation from the New York City Economic Development Corporation represents yet another stage in the evolution and diversification of Long Island City's economy. Currently, our commercial expansion can be divided into two categories.

First, we have these high technology and general office users and second, the service businesses with support tech and general office use. The migration of high tech and the general office and user companies highlighted by the Metlife announcement last Wednesday is well established. Such migration is basically propelled by the steep increases in the Manhattan rents. Although the .com reverses to cool the top end rents are still higher than they were even eighteen months ago. Also Long Island City's superb location and transit access are major pluses. Self sustaining momentum now exists. Of course, we are hopeful there will not be a severe or prolonged recession. Service businesses such as restaurants coffee shops, dry cleaners, actually are already present in Long Island City, but because we don't have critical mass if you walk down the street you may not be aware of theirs presence. Obviously, more amenities are needed. As hundreds of new employees accustomed to the conveniences of Manhattan locations come to Queens Plaza and the surrounding areas in Long Island City. Obviously, it is more difficult for entrepreneurs to establish the kinds of businesses such as these retail establishments in anticipation of future growth. Many of these new service businesses will depend on enhanced foot traffic particularly generated by the employment initially in the Queens Plaza area. Many, probably most customers, will spend money during their journey to and from work as well as at lunch time. Initially retailers are not going to be able to depend on any substantial residential base. We all know that opening a new business involves a lot of risk. Risk in an evolving neighborhood is much greater. The reward for being the first one in for, say a restaurant are considerable if the timing is right. If the timing is premature, however, bankruptcy is easily possible. Prompt timing is needed for these businesses. A special commercial revitalization program aimed at aiding the development of new service businesses in the midst of rapid office development give one possibility. This is a (inaudible) basically for commercial revitalization which usually has been used in New York City to support existing commercial strips. It is a new program development and close cooperation with both incoming employers and with properties and business owners is definitely required. The need for a more aggressive commercial revitalization effort will be transitional as is the case with office development. Self sustaining market driven momentum will develop in this sector as overall employment and support services in the Queens Plaza area and Long Island City overall rises.

Now Long Island City already has the Long Island City Business Development Corporation for general business services and as an outlet. We also have the president -- we actually have the president or did have the president of LaGuardia Community College with us today because LaGuardia Community College, Devry Institute provides the types of job training programs which we think are really going to be essential, increase links with the existing business community and advance knowledge of the need of newly arriving employers. Metlife, MoMA are needed because we want to maximize our business support services. I am pleased that the Long Island City Business Development Corporation will take the lead in facilitating these needs. Transit is a huge accent for Long Island City, but efforts to maintain existing levels of service, especially subway service and exploration of new bus services to outline commercial and industrial areas will be needed as we greet the influx of new workers as well as accommodating the existing work force and the increasing residential population. Industrial expansion will require institutionalized cooperative efforts by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the MTA, the Empire State Development Corp and other agencies as well. We are really pleased all those governmental entities have really pledged their support. At the inter-mobile rail passenger station which you heard a little about is going to require a similar institutionalized corporation from the LIRR, from New Jersey Transit. When I look out my office window I can see the New Jersey Transit trains parked in the Sunnyside Yard and think what a tragedy that people who commute to the Long Island City area into Queens from New Jersey can't get off and transfer there. Obviously, we are going to work Amtrack, city, state and other transportation agencies as well. One of the most significant occurrences in Long Island City today is its changing job -- transportation agencies as well. One of the most significant occurrences in Long Island City today is its changing job market. There is a greater diversity of higher paying jobs with career ladders also arriving in Long Island City.

Over all, I found an interesting statistic the other day. Employment rose by nineteen 19.1 percent from 1995 to 2000. So our total employment now is nearing ninety thousand which really rivals the employment base in Stanford, Connecticut and Jersey City. It should be noted, however, that during the same period manufacturing employment dropped by 5.4 percent. So it is very important to keep that balance as Adam Friedman pointed out because these manufacturing jobs are very essential to the economic vitality of Long Island City. In way of historical context Long Island City has always been a relocation site for Manhattan firms pushed out by rising cost especially rents and this has been ongoing for the past 125. The characteristics of these relocating firms has evolved as the economy has changed. Seventy years ago efficient new buildings brought manufacturing relocation from crowded expensive Manhattan. Now high technology and technology end users and general office tenants, also moving freely. In this context it is apparent that with rapid increases in the values of rents, manufacturing firms can not pay the prey expected for space within easy walking distance of our subway stops. As leases expire their manufacturers will face the choice of unaffordable rents or relocation.

The LICBDC's job as part of its sponsorship of Cyber City at LIC is to help manufacturers find affordable space else where in Long Island City or Queens, be it working with our very vibrant real estate community with entities like the New York Industrial Network as well. Most of the designer ability of these areas are not within close proximity to subways that will probably be the sites where manufacturers are going to have to relocation so we want to ensure there is institutional cooperation particularly to expand bus routes, to provide increased police patrols.

Another key factor in commercial expansion is the establishment of a 24 hour environment. How do we do that? Obviously, several things are needed. First, we need service businesses