Jim is an urban planning professional with experience in design, public-private partnerships, and economic and community development. Prior to Hester Street, Jim worked at Greater Jamaica Development Corporation (GJDC), where his role was to promote the thriving Downtown Jamaica commercial district and surrounding area, while still addressing the community’s needs to support responsible public and private investment to enhance the quality of life for its residents and workers. Among his major projects included the RFP and sale of an open air parking lot to a developer building 500+ units of affordable housing (a portion of which will be dedicated to artists) with prime storefront retail; and securing New Market Tax Credits to finance the construction of Jamaica and Southeast Queens’ first-ever coworking space and state-of-the-art business training center, a project helping to catalyze the area’s growing entrepreneurship industry and anchoring an innovation corridor running through the center of the downtown.
Earlier in his career, Jim worked at the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), serving in multiple roles including assistant architect, division advisor, senior portfolio planner, and city planner. While there, he was part of a team that focused on city agency office spaces within its owned and leased portfolio, targeting and identifying underutilized office space and working to consolidate those spaces as needed. Notably in 2012, he prepared a comprehensive mobilization plan and was his agency’s project manager for the realization of the first day of Marriage Equality in New York City – preparing and assessing the interiors of all five boroughs’ marriage bureau spaces for an unprecedented influx of visitors on a normally closed weekend day; and coordinating with a multiple agency team, including the Mayor’s Office, Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, NYPD, and Speaker’s Office of the City Council, on a variety of issues.
A native of Wichita, Kansas, Jim holds a Masters in Urban Planning from Hunter College, as well as a Bachelors of Science in Architecture from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Outside of work, he is an avid world traveler and prolific distance runner, with marathon and half marathon finishes in all 50 states and several foreign countries.