Forest Hills empty storefronts are bad news

From CBS 2:

There are many empty storefronts in the main shopping district in Forest Hills, Queens. They stand out like the empty space left when a tooth has been pulled, and business owners say it hurts just as much.

A staggering increase in the number of vacant storefronts is the city’s latest economic crisis, with many wondering why nothing has been done. According to a new report by the City Council, 600,000 people are employed by small retail businesses and restaurants in the city.

This made a City Council hearing on vacant storefronts all the more disheartening, Kramer reported. Members of the De Blasio administration were unable to tell Councilman Dan Garodnick and others what’s going on and what they’re doing about it.

Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, who represents Forest Hills, says the city has to do something.

“We have to look at each neighborhood to see what is going on, and why is this happening, and also have conversations with the landlords,” she said.

Meanwhile, two state lawmakers are taking action, introducing legislation to create a property tax exemption for landlords who offer mom and pop stores a long-term lease with fair increase to help them stay in business.

Burst pipes send Atlas stores packing

From the Queens Courier:

Two separate pipe bursts in The Shops at Atlas Park last month damaged five stores in the shopping center — and the future of some of those affected businesses is still unclear.

“There were two separate pipe bursts, one in Gymboree and one in Shiro of Japan, about 12 hours apart from each other,” said Peter DeLucia, a representative from The Shops at Atlas Park. “Some stores have since opened and some are still fixing up.”

The pipe that burst on Feb. 16 at Shiro of Japan damaged that store, along with Maidenform, J. Jill and Chico’s. Since the burst, Shiro and Maidenform have reopened, but the same could not be said for J. Jill and Chico’s.

According to DeLucia, both J. Jill and Chico’s are closed until further notice, and he said that he could not comment on whether they will re-open at this point.

But a source familiar with the situation claimed that those stores would not re-open. The stores have been cleared out and both store’s signs have been taken down.

Are high rents driving out Murray Hill businesses?

"Murray Hill Plaza...Duane Reade closing...followed by 2 other stores...reason according to DR employee: 'landlord'. One other store is already gone." - The Flushing Phantom

Woodhaven Blvd block an eyesore

From the Daily News:

A run down, empty stretch of stores on Woodhaven Blvd. sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise tidy and bustling neighborhood on the border of Rego Park and Middle Village.

Civic leaders have been railing against the eyesore with limited results. A 2-year-old set of scaffolding that served as little more than a climbing post for raccoons and possum finally came down a few weeks ago and tattered awnings were removed.

But it’s unclear why the storefronts remain empty in an area where nearly every inch of commercial space is used.

“We were getting complaints about the scaffolding and people were really upset about the loss of stores,” said Robert Holden of the Juniper Park Civic Association.

The deteriorating Dana Court, an apartment building on that block, has neighbors worried about plummeting land values.

On a recent day, pigeons flew in and out of an open window in a vacant apartment. And some residents believe they are roosting inside.

The property is owned by California-based landlord Daniel Shalom and operated by his Keystone Management. Efforts by the Daily News to reach Shalom were unsuccessful and several calls to Keystone Management were not returned. One woman who answered the phone said she was “not allowed to speak with reporters.”

Shalom, also known as Daniel Ohebshalom, is part of a large real estate family that owns property in both New York City and California across several different companies.
Several of those companies have been cited in published reports for failing to maintain buildings and trying to push out low-income tenants.

Agency officials confirmed to The News on Wednesday that there are 12 open violations at Dana Court.

The sad condition of 162nd Street

Click photo for story

Shuttered Fresh Pond store bringing down the nabe

From the Times Newsweekly:

Rachel’s Garden, which was located at the corner of Fresh Pond Road and Woodbine Street in Ridgewood, closed its doors only 18 months after opening. Before the fruitstand, a medical office was briefly located there. For many years, the location was a large and successful funeral parlor—Wasmund’s, then Wasmund’s and Sorice.

Problems were touched off between the establishment and block residents when the store took the garage, located at the rear on Woodbine Street, and turned it into an additional storage room for the fruits and vegetables, when the rooms below the store became filled with too much produce.

Others in the area noted that Rachel’s Garden management also used the converted garage to store garbage, which included rotting fruits and vegetables, kept right alongside the fresh produce which they sold.

This was evidenced by the stench emanating from it which one nearby property owner described as “unbearable.”

Since being shuttered, the store has taken on a dilapidated appearance, according to area residents. The entryways to the shop have been boarded up with plywood. Some of the wooden shelves once lined with produce have been dismantled, with the pieces left lying on the sidewalk adjacent to the storefront.

Neighbors also claimed that they have seen an assortment of pests—including roaches, mice and rats— scurrying into and out of the garage and shuttered store. Complaints have been filed with various city agencies via the 311 hotline demanding action to compel the landlord and/or the defunct shop’s owner to clean up the mess.

In Vomitus Veritas!

"IN VOMITUS VERITUS ? (Is there some truth to be found in puke?)

Whose version of "THE TRUTH" shall we believe?
What is the REAL future of Flushing to become during the next decade?

TDC Rockefeller, represented by Michael Meyers, will someday (if the economy ever improves) insists that they will be building the "upscale" Flushing Commons project over the bones of Muni Lot #1....provided they can ever get their needed overseas investors to fund it.

From Mike's lofty perch....high atop TDC's "Queens Crossing" headquarters (right across the street) all looks rosy and bright.

But from where we all board the Q13, Q16 & Q28 along 39th Ave. the view is frequently quite different.


Here, it looks like some unhappy diner just returned his dinner....and right in front of the restaurant he just exited.

This is surely not a pretty site....and it's not uncommon.


Neither is the shabby looking view of "VIBRANT, BUSTLING" Main Street.


And along the south side of 39th Avenue....we feature these 2 vacant retail establishment, neatly in a row, just past Lippman Arcade.

Now c'mon and blow some more smoke up out butts about the successful completion of your Willets Point boondoggle project....Claire Shulman, Wellington Chen, Chuck Apelian & Co., etc.

I'm straining my cardiovascular system, as it is, by laughing so hard!"

- The Flushing Phantom

An empty feeling

From New York Magazine:

An empty storefront is a bummer, especially when it sits for months, depleting the block of its vibrancy. “It doesn’t continue to provide the kind of animated street life that most people like about cities,” says urban planner Ethel Sheffer. Vacancies in older buildings have that effect, but when they’re found in new developments, the feeling is perhaps even more pronounced...

In Manhattan alone, at least 46 condo buildings built or converted in the past five years have 69 empty retail spaces, according to PropertyShark.com, and that’s not counting new rental towers. Brooklyn’s condo-fied neighborhoods have them, too.

The reasons for the lingering vacancies are manifold. Hobbled by the recession, the ground-floor retail market is still righting itself. The banks and Duane Reades of the world that once reliably colonized such spaces are today less acquisitive, say brokers, and discount-apparel retailers like Filene’s Basement and Daffy’s, which have stepped in to fill the vacuum, want pedestrian-heavy addresses—which wasn’t a prerequisite for the condo parts of these towers. Meanwhile, some merchants have taken the opportunity to trade up to previously unaffordable addresses, further hampering developments in less-proven locations.

Then there are the developers with suitors for their storefronts who choose to demur, lest retail tenants interfere with sales momentum. (In this market, condo buyers balk for reasons big and small.) For those going uncourted, slashing rents is a fix with risks. Condos are expensive to build, and that was especially so during the boom years, when all these buildings went up; since retail leases typically last a decade or more, it can make sense to wait for prices to turn...

That’s the business end; on a psychic level, these empty spaces follow a whole different math. Whereas an old boarded-up building, abandoned after its better days, speaks of a slow-motion subtraction, these luxury-wrapped shells are a reminder of an era of exponential promise suddenly cut short. The longer they sit unused the further away the fizzy times feel.