While public attention was focused on the city's ill-fated plan to build a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan over the past two years, the Bloomberg administration quietly labored over projects and development plans in corners of the city - from Jamaica, Queens, to Staten Island - that generated very few headlines.
But the city has only so many resources, and not every project can get the full attention of City Hall. With the stadium plan now dead in Albany and the city's Olympic bid rejected, urban planners and local development officials are hoping that the Bloomberg administration will bring to other projects the same kind of energy and focus that it displayed on the West Side.
Even critics of the Bloomberg administration in private organizations, like Robert D. Yaro, the president of the Regional Plan Association, and Jonathan Bowles, the research director of the Center for an Urban Future, give Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg high marks for doing what few previous mayors have done: promoting economic development projects in the boroughs outside of Manhattan that could transform entire neighborhoods.
Those efforts include rezoning the crumbling industrial streets of Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn in a plan for a waterfront residential neighborhood; reinvigorating the Hunts Point industrial park in the Bronx; and helping to create a relatively inexpensive office market in Long Island City, Queens.
But some officials active in development efforts in Jamaica and Long Island City say that while the Bloomberg administration did not ignore their communities, they wished that it had moved more swiftly.
"I give the administration enormous credit for its work in the boroughs," said Mr. Bowles of the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit research group. "But New York moves so slowly sometimes. It was the mayor's personal involvement on the West Side and Williamsburg that pushed them forward in an expedited manner. It'd be great if he could devote the same energy and resources to other projects."
Gayle Baron, president of the Long Island City Business Development Corporation, said there was increasing interest by Manhattan corporations in moving some of their operations to Long Island City. Citigroup is expected to start construction of its second office building there this fall.
The city, she said, is in final negotiations with a developer, Tishman Speyer Properties, over a proposed 2.2 million-square-foot commercial and retail project on a city-owned garage site at Queens Plaza, and Silvercup Studios plans a major building project in 2007.
But efforts have been "a little disjointed," Ms. Baron said, and she longs for something bigger.
"Where I think we really need help is with a comprehensive marketing initiative, with city funds, to really brand Long Island City," she said. "It's time for a comprehensive economic development plan that takes into account the commercial interests and the manufacturing and arts groups that continue to thrive in the area."
Mayor Bloomberg has dismissed criticism from his political rivals who say he has been "Manhattan-centric" and obsessed with stadium building, to the exclusion of projects in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx or Staten Island. In speeches before civic and business groups, he has challenged his critics to name another mayor who had invested $2 billion in projects in all five boroughs.
"The press has been focused on the West Side and the stadium, but my agency has been focused on all five boroughs for the last three and a half years," said Andrew M. Alper, president of the city's Economic Development Corporation.
"We've been working hard on the redevelopment of the Bronx Terminal Market, the homeport site in Staten Island, Downtown Brooklyn, the rezoning of Greenpoint-Williamsburg and the Potamkin project in Harlem," he said, referring to the Harlem Auto Mall, a joint venture of the Potamkin Auto Group and General Motors.
In the next few weeks, the Bloomberg administration expects to announce a major development project in Jamaica and the selection of a developer for the proposed East River Science Park, a corporate park for life science industries near Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.
In Coney Island, the city is working with neighborhood leaders to develop a plan for the area that includes new commercial strips, infrastructure improvements and the rehabilitation of the boardwalk and entertainment areas.
The minor-league ballpark built there by the Giuliani administration, KeySpan Park, has attracted thousands of visitors, but has done little for the economic vitality of the neighborhood.
And the state and the city will soon select a developer for a $915 million railroad station, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Station on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.
Although the announcements of these projects have won praise, some neighborhood leaders say they hope the staffs of the Department of City Planning and the development corporation will be able to devote more time to follow through now that the Olympics are off the agenda.
For instance, although the planning department is rezoning a 415-block portion of Jamaica, local leaders complain that the effort is two years behind schedule.
The city's development efforts have also drawn criticism for their possible economic effects. The city has announced plans to build a new cruise ship terminal along the Brooklyn waterfront in Red Hook, but Mr. Bowles and others said they worried that the Bloomberg administration appeared determined to eliminate the blue-collar maritime jobs on nearby piers.
In some of the harshest criticism of the administration, Michael Sorkin, the director of the graduate urban design program at City College, said that too often the city has rezoned industrial areas of Long Island City and Greenpoint for luxury residential buildings, driving out manufacturing jobs and longtime residents unable to pay rising rents.
"To me, the administration's economic development program is distorted in favor of a trickle-down theory of benefits from development," Mr. Sorkin said. "It's heavily weighted in favor of office development and housing for those who can best afford it."
He said the city should focus on less expensive housing, transportation and "economic diversity, rather than relying on only one mode of employment: office jobs."
Still, many urban planners, developers and neighborhood development groups have a generally favorable view of the administration's economic plans.
"I don't think there's ever been a more receptive and professional government operation than the one we've had over the past four years," said Fred Harris of Avalon Bay Communities, which is building residential towers at the Queens West development, on the East River in Hunters Point.
Mr. Harris said he was somewhat relieved that the Olympic Village, which would have been built to house athletes at the south end of Queens West, is not going forward. He said he had been "terrified" at the prospect of 4,500 apartments from the Olympic Village suddenly going on the retail market after the Olympics ended in what has been a slow-to-develop neighborhood.
Looking forward, Mr. Yaro of the Regional Plan Association said Manhattan should not be ignored. He said the city should develop a comprehensive plan for mixed-use development at the West Side railyards where the city wanted to build the stadium.
He and others also called on the city to become more active and vigilant in Lower Manhattan, where commercial vacancy rates remain high, even if the state largely controls the rebuilding effort.
"We've got to be focused like a laser beam on Lower Manhattan," Mr. Yaro said. "There's a crisis of confidence down there. Incentives help, but the business community wants assurances that rebuilding will move ahead."