The project to clean up the dark and ugly underpass was years behind schedule and was officially unveiled in a “lighting ceremony” in June attended by Meeks and others. The money and other grants that the Queens Democrat sent to Greater Jamaica are under investigation by the US Attorney’s Office, which last year issued a subpoena to the nonprofit seeking information on the funds. Gregory Meeks secured Federal Transit Administration funds for the site. The storefronts were the centerpiece of the revitalization of the Sutphin Boulevard underpass under the Jamaica Long Island Rail Road station.
The 2,300-square-foot space is now an empty shell. It will basically be a waiting room for free shuttle buses that run to the racino every 20 minutes. The Greater Jamaica Development Corp., the politically connected nonprofit that used $9.2 million in taxpayer money to clean up the area and develop the retail arcade, says it has signed a lease with Resorts World for the largest of the storefronts on Sutphin Boulevard. The only tenant so far in a long-planned retail center that’s supposed to attract shoppers to downtown Jamaica will be a bus station that instead takes them away - to the Resorts World racino at Aqueduct Raceway.Ī sign in one of the three storefronts, which have remained empty since they were finished last June, advertises: “Coming soon: Bus Depot Here!” Here’s one way to gamble on taxpayer-funded urban revitalization.
