Jamaica money pit
Taxpayers soaked on 2nd project
Another day, another taxpayer boondoggle in Jamaica.
Two years after it opened as an “incubator” for small businesses, the $2.5 million Jamaica Export Centre — built with mostly taxpayer cash — is virtually deserted.
The dusty reception desk, which was supposed to serve up to eight businesses, is virtually unoccupied. Downstairs, a meeting room is empty, and a sign out front says it is available for baby showers and birthday parties.
The 8,000-square-foot building near Kennedy Airport opened with great fanfare in 2010. Its mission was to help export and freight-forwarding companies owned by minorities and women. The businesses would get subsidized rent and shared services, such as a receptionist and meeting room.
Among the pols who showed up for the ribbon cutting were Rep. Gregory Meeks, state Assemblywoman Michele Titus and City Councilman Leroy Comrie, Democrats who each secured cash for the project.
About $1.7 million in taxpayer funds went into buying an old tire shop on Rockaway Boulevard and replacing it with the gleaming new two-story building. The state Dormitory Authority kicked in another $450,000 to buy a ramshackle house behind the property, which was torn down to create an ample parking lot.
The pols ponied up the money to the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, which spearheaded the project, even though its president, Robert Richards, readily admitted that the group had never run a business incubator.
“We don’t have a lot of experience here,’’ Richards told Crain’s in 2006.
Today, just two businesses and a nonprofit have rented space at the center, and have done so only in the last five months. Richards refused to name the firms, but said they were not freight forwarders.
He said the center was counting on the government to keep the funding spigot on, but the end of state pork-barrel spending in 2010 wrecked the project.
“Most incubators are supported by government grants,” Richards said. “They require a great deal of start-up capital.”
Meeks, who secured some $300,000 in congressional earmarks, said: “I only wish there were more resources to continue supporting this worthwhile mission.”
The Chamber of Commerce, which now has its offices at the center, has not paid property taxes on the building since July, and owes $18,482.
Richards claims to have gone without a salary in the last two years.
He said the Export Centre would hold a fund-raiser in April, and was planning workshops for freight forwarders and other businesses.
Comrie, who obtained $50,000 in city funds for the project, said he did not understand “why it failed.”
“At the very least, we have a modern building for other programming,” Comrie said.
The Post recently revealed that another taxpayer-financed building in Jamaica was sitting largely unused.
The Sutphin Avenue building, purchased with $2.7 million in Port Authority money, has not been developed by the Greater Jamaica Development Corp.
After The Post exposé, the Port Authority announced that if no progress was made by August, it would seize the building.