"Without Recovery Zone bonds, the Stop & Shop would not have been built, and there is now a supermarket in the Rockaways where there was none before, for miles."

Gerry Romski, Project Executive, Arverne by the Sea

Business Need

The Arverne by the Sea development project is a residential community located within a designated New York City Recovery Zone on the Rockaway Peninsula that includes 270,000 square feet of retail and commercial space. As part of the City’s 2008 “Going to Market” study, the neighborhood was found to have a high need for more supermarkets and access to fresh food.

Solution

A new $23 million, 55,000-square-foot Stop & Shop at Arverne by the Sea will help address the lack of supermarkets in the neighborhood and provide access to fresh groceries for local residents. The project received $5.5 million in tax-exempt financing as one of two Recovery Zone projects developed by Arverne by the Sea LLC, and is the first of New York City’s Recovery Zone projects to open.

In order to help jumpstart stalled retail and commercial development projects, the Federal government authorized approximately $122 million in allocations for tax-exempt Recovery Zone financing to New York City under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in February 2009. Stimulating private lending would provide critical support for local projects and, more importantly, thousands of new jobs for unemployed workers. New York City Capital Resource Corporation (NYCCRC), administered by NYCEDC, developed the Recover NYC Program before the allocation was received in June 2009 to distribute the financing equitably and efficiently to neighborhoods that needed it most.

The Arverne by the Sea project epitomizes the aim of the Recover NYC Program, in that it is a job-generator, creating 200 construction jobs and another 100 permanent jobs. Additionally, the supermarket features an eco-conscious design, including an Energy Star-rated reflective white roof and daylight harvesting from skylights and windows.