A Queens ransom

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It rakes in millions in taxpayer money, pays its executives handsomely, and likes to tout its grand visions.

But critics and business owners say that in the 45 years the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. has existed, it’s done little to further its single mission: Make Jamaica, Queens, a better place to work and live.

The nonprofit’s latest plan is a $25 million project to widen a road and create a public plaza. To do it, GJDC asked the city’s help to evict more than a dozen small businesses and several apartment dwellers — the exact groups the organization is supposed to help.

Carol Radin is fuming over the impending loss of her property at Sutphin Boulevard and Archer Avenue, which includes three apartments, retail shops and office space. She has operated businesses at the corner since 1960.

Greater Jamaica, formed in 1967 to revitalize the struggling Queens business district, has reaped a windfall of public money from its allies, including embattled Rep. Gregory Meeks, but its track record is disputed.

“Greater Jamaica Development, to me, was formed only to pad the pockets of the people who were really involved,” said Radin, who added she had not “seen one thing of improvement.”

Among Greater Jamaica’s purported “achievements:”

* Running five parking lots and garages that make millions in revenue that is used only to bolster the finances of the organization. Until recently, it paid no taxes for those businesses.

* Owning a landmark building that houses its headquarters and other tenants. Yet Greater Jamaica still manages to pay millions in rent — $1,564,278 alone in 2010 — to a separate nonprofit that it controls. It refused to explain the arrangement.

* Buying an old grocery store in 2004 with a $2.7 million grant from the Port Authority to be developed as a corporate office tower for tenants like JetBlue. The project went nowhere and the PA — after a Post exposé — is now investigating the deal, which called for it to get its money back, or take the building.

* Spending more than $8 million to gobble up a strip of stores and businesses in order to develop the property into a 250-room hotel and conference center. But the developer, Jeff Spiritos, has defaulted on his agreement with Greater Jamaica, and the project is in limbo.

The hotel site stands empty across the street from the businesses that are about to be evicted to make way for the “Station Plaza” project. Greater Jamaica is working with the city, which will take the property through condemnation if it cannot reach agreements with the property owners. GJDC hopes to start construction in 2013.

The organization took in $17 million in 2010, including $6.7 million in government contracts. It spent $16 million.

Carlisle Towery, a soft-spoken Alabaman who has presided over the group for 41 years, took home $283,485 in salary and benefits in 2010. His wife, Susan Deutsch, was paid $77,700 as a “consultant” providing unspecified financial advice. Her “firm” is based at the couple’s home in a luxury gated community in Westchester, 30 miles from Jamaica.

The group paid a total of $3.5 million in salaries in 2010 to its 55 employees, including managers and a staff of security guards who patrol the downtown. Another $6.6 million went to an engineering firm, architectural firm and contractors.

The organization counts among its accomplishments the removal of the elevated-subway tracks from the Jamaica business district in 1976; the creation of the Jamaica Market, a food court with local retailers; and the development of an FDA laboratory in Jamaica.

It also touts its 2,000-space parking system which includes five lots and garages purchased from the city. It took in $5.3 million in revenue, but paid out $3.7 million to a parking garage operator.

The city yanked the property-tax exemption for the facilities last year, claiming they did not serve a charitable purpose.

Greater Jamaica sued the city in October to get back the tax-exempt status, arguing that it provides reasonably priced parking for businesses, which is key to its mission of “creating and maintaining a viable downtown Jamaica.”

Jamaica by the numbers

27 Homicides in the 103rd and 113th Precincts combined last year

100 Homes abandoned and vandalized in the 113th Precinct

8.1% Unemployment in southeast Queens, November 2011.

285,600 People living in Jamaica, with the highest proportion of blacks in Queens residing there, according to the US Census Bureau.

200 Workers who lost jobs in 2010 when Hostess Wonder Bread Factory closed

Also:

* Of all the neighborhoods in NYC, Jamaica ranks in the bottom 10 of having a healthy baby.

* In 2004 Jamaica had HIV diagnoses higher than anywhere else in Queens.

* In 2008, southeast Queens had the highest home foreclosures in the city over a five-year period.

AND THE NONPROFIT MEANT TO HElP IT

The Greater Jamaica Development Corp.