Shrinking jobs? Not in booming Kingsbridge

By N. Clark Judd

The number of jobs in Kingsbridge and southern Riverdale has soared in the past decade, according to a report by a New York City-based think tank.

Released just over a week before last Friday’s confirmation that Wall Street was in a tailspin, the analysis of state Department of Labor figures by non-partisan policy researchers at the Center for an Urban Future found that the 10463 ZIP code gained more than 2,000 jobs between the first quarter of 1997 and the first quarter of 2007. The area ranks sixth in the Bronx for job creation, according to the center’s analysis, on par with Hunts Point and the High Bridge/Morrisania section, but trailing behind job growth-leading ZIP codes that represent Morris Park/ Westchester Square, Williamsbridge and Baychester/Co-op City.

“I was very surprised myself to see it,” Katherine Broihier, the Kingsbridge Business Improvement District’s district manager, said of the jump in employment in Kingsbridge. “I do know that there is an increase here and there among businesses, but I haven’t seen, I don’t know where they’re getting their numbers from.”

Ms. Broihier said the commercial district has been very stable in the seven years she’s been keeping tabs on it, with larger retail stores bringing in new employees only seasonally, and area offices, such as insurance companies, keeping low but steady staff levels.

“What I’m trying to do is get my head around it, also, what has created this jump,” she said.

Ms. Broihier and others in the area attribute at least some of the employment growth to the River Plaza Mall and Kingsbridge’s Broadway corridor. Anchored by a Target store, River Plaza was billed at its groundbreaking in 2002 and completion in 2004 as the gateway to what was to become a thriving Kingsbridge commercial district. For Pamela Otto, executive director of the Kingsbridge-Riverdale- Van Cortlandt Development Corporation, the study is evidence that the more than 200,000-square-foot mall has delivered.

While Kingsbridge has enjoyed modest growth, it did not rank among the fastest-growing neighborhoods in the city. That list is dominated by upper Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

“Why, if this is a climate in which the outlying boroughs are getting the majority of job growth, what makes our area different?” asked Bob Fanuzzi, chairman of Community Board 8’s economic development committee.

Jonathan Bowles, Center for an Urban Future’s executive director, cautioned that the figures for upper

Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, which ranked third in the city for fastest rate of job gain, may be the result of some accounting changes at Columbia University — but Kingsbridge was still edged from a spot on the list of the top 40 fastest-growing neighborhoods by Jamaica and West Farms. Both places had over 33 percent more jobs at the start of 2007 than they did in 1997.

Looking forward to several projects on the horizon in Kingsbridge, Ms. Otto is confident that despite the current tough economic times, the neighborhood is in a position to continue growing.

“If that mall ever comes up on 230th, I think we’d have another time where we add a lot more jobs in the neighborhood just with those shops coming open,” she said, referring to the West 230th Street mall, now called “Broadway Plaza” by its developer.

Residential growth in Kingsbridge seems to continue despite the current devastation in the financial markets. Those developments bring jobs in the short term and residents who will spend money in the neighborhood in the long term, she said. Meanwhile, owners of shops in the commercial corridor continue to expand and renovate.

There is a concern about retail jobs, Mr. Fanuzzi and Ms. Otto agree, because benefits are sometimes skimpy and there is little room for advancement in retail. However, Mr. Fanuzzi counters, it can help people pay the bills as they get higher education and prepare to move in to a different sector.

“For our neighborhood, right now,” Ms. Otto said, “it seems to be working.”

This is part of the September 18, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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