TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | APRIL 15-21, 2022 6
Long Island City Partnership hosts annual real estate breakfast
BY JULIA MORO
The Long Island City Partnership
(LICP) held its 17th annual
real estate breakfast on Wednesday,
April 6, at the Raven Hotel,
welcoming a diverse panel of
business leaders who discussed
their experience operating in the
neighborhood.
LICP is an economic development
agency that helps to attract
new businesses to Long Island
City, retain the ones already in
the neighborhood and promote a
vibrant community. The annual
LICP breakfast is an anticipated
real estate event for western
Queens, bringing more than 300
business leaders together.
Multiple city elected officials
including Queens Borough
President Donovan Richards
and Comptroller Brad Lander attended
the event. Lander said that
what LICP and its sponsors have
made possible is very exciting.
“There was a time when
mixed-use was an idea in New
York City, not a reality,” Lander
said. “There was a debate, of ‘Do
we want an office community or
a residential community?’ What
Long Island City is showing is a
vibrant, dynamic and mixed-use
community that has all of those
things.”
Elizabeth Lusskin, the president
of LICP, presented a neighborhood
snapshot, which revealed
immense growth in residents and
workers. Over the past decade,
Long Island City’s residential
population increased five times,
while jobs grew more than two
times faster than the city as a
whole.
According to LICP, over 318,000
square feet of retail mixed-use
building and commercial space
will be added to the neighborhood
by 2025, along with over 2.8
million added square feet of
industrial space.
The panel of local business
owners and large corporation
leaders first spoke about their
decision to locate in Long Island
City. Kevin Costello, director of
infrastructure properties and development
of JetBlue Airways, recently
shared that they re-upped a
15-year lease at 27-01 Queens Plaza
N in Long Island City. Costello
said that the original deal to put
offices in the neighborhood 12
years ago just made the most
sense.
“New York is our center of
gravity,” Costello said. “We are
delighted to be referred to as New
York’s hometown airline. We continue
to really value our relationship
with Queens and in particular
Long Island City.”
Doyun Kim, owner of No
Stress Coffee, opened during the
pandemic and mentioned that
Long Island City was the smartest
choice for her when considering
what type of customer base No
Stress Coffee would cater to.
“Somewhere where you can
just walk in and know the barista,
know the owner and have a
true relationship with places and
brands you visit on a day-to-day
basis,” Kim said. “I don’t think we
would have been able to be in the
LIC area if not for the pandemic.”
Kim said that it has been difficult
to keep up since the rush
of customers has not been consistent.
Usually, Kim keeps track
of businesses in the area like Jet-
Blue that require employees to
come in on a certain schedule and
has noticed a slew of coffee buyers
on those days. However, other
days are very quiet when employees
work from home.
“For a small business, because
we rely so much on pattern human
behavior. Just the lack of patterns
right now has been difficult
in inventory and staffing and just
predicting outcomes,” Kim said.
Queens Borough President
closed out the event saying
“Queens is open for business.”
“The small businesses truly
are the lifeblood of our borough
and there really were immense
challenges coming through the
pandemic,” Richards said. “But it
really was the private and public
partnerships that got us through
this hard time.”
Doyun Kim, owner of No Stress Coffee, speaks at the Long Island City
Partnership’s annual real estate breakfast on Wednesday, April 6.
Photo by Paul Frangipane
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