Streetlevel
May 9, 2008
Bird Blog: Week 2
Every week, Jennifer Mankins, owner of Park Slope- and Cobble Hill-based boutiques Bird, tells us about the new 2,500-square-foot store on Grand Street in Williamsburg that she's getting ready to open.
I'd like to thank everyone that read the first post and for all the supportive and encouraging comments. I would also like to clarify that the Williamsburg location will not replace the Park Slope and Cobble Hill stores. They will remain open. So…if you couldn’t tell from the first post last week, I was smitten with the space. I have seen lots of properties over the years, from dumps that I never even placed bids on to dream spaces where I could clearly envision the future of Bird. This was definitively the latter and I was trying hard not to get too excited. I decided I should call in the troops, to get second opinions. Not wanting to waste any time, I scheduled an appointment that weekend for my own “panel of experts” to visit the space with me a second time: my sister and my husband plus two good friends – an architect and a local commercial real estate broker/developer. The building was built right before the turn of the 20th century, between 1896 and 1898. After the jump, find out what the experts uncovered and how our rent negotiations went...
May 7, 2008
StreetLevel: Fitness Collective Coming to North Slope
The 5th Ave. space that used to be a 99-cent store between Bergen and Dean is going to be offering pricier stuff pretty soon. Fitness Collective, the personal training business with another outpost on 7th Avenue in the Slope and one on Court Street in Cobble Hill, has leased the ground-floor and should be open sometime in August. The immediate area already has a few fitness places close by: There's that boot camp place around the corner on Flatbush, a Pilates studio and yoga center a couple blocks further south, plus that gym on the corner of Union. Room for another in the mix?
May 6, 2008
Streetlevel: Franklin Park Already Packed
Franklin Park, by the creators of Park Slope's Southpaw, is already packed after only being open a week. We stopped by the Crown Heights bar and beer garden on its opening night April 25 (totally packed) and last Friday, when even the patio was full despite the chilly weather. There're not many places like it in close proximity — featuring a large patio that welcomes (apparently) dogs and carryout, a unique beer list mostly for $5 or $6, good music (primarily hip hop), and a trendy yet comfortable atmosphere. We're going to go out on a limb here, but we think this is going to be The Summer Place for a lot of people living in Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, and for people visiting the Brooklyn Museum two blocks away. Its success reminds us of when Enduro, a mid-priced bar and Mexican restaurant, opened 12 blocks away in Prospect Lefferts-Gardens. Almost instantly it grew into the neighborhood gathering place for a diverse cross-section of residents and is busy EVERY night of the week, probably beating out a lot of similar restaurants in Park Slope. While the photograph doesn't show the most diverse clientele, as the word gets out, we think the mix will be more representative of the overall neighborhood. The bar is located at 618 St. Johns Place at Franklin Avenue.
Streetlevel: Crown Heights Bar Goes to Bed Early
May 5, 2008
StreetLevel: Slope Babeland Should Open Next Month
The Bergen Street space that'll house Toys in Babeland is being gussied up by construction workers, one of whom told us that the adult-toys shop is scheduled to open in June. The interior (no pics allowed!) is still very raw, but judging from the test paint swatches on the wall, it's going to be quite colorful when all's said and done. As an aside, the long-in-the-works eatery next door, Organic Heights, opened up a couple weeks ago. Dildos and wheat germ, oh my!
StreetLevel: Kids Clothes and Adult Toys for Bergen Street [Brownstoner] GMAP
May 2, 2008
Streetlevel: Ice Cream Could be Fair Game For Sun, Flies
Clinton Hill isn't the only neighborhood with new outdoor seating in the pipeline. There's some good news for sun-worshipping sweet-tooths in the Heights: The Häagen-Dazs at 120 Montague Street gained approval from a Community Board 2 subcommittee last week to add sidewalk seating, according to District Manager Robert Perris. Zwei Schaufeln kugeln, bitte!
Bird Blog: Week 1
We've documented home renovations and ground-up developments on Brownstoner so far, but never a store. That changes today with the first installment of the Bird Blog. Jennifer Mankins, owner of Park Slope- and Cobble Hill-based stores Bird, is just embarking on her most ambitious retail effort yet, a 2,500-square-foot space on Grand Street in Williamsburg. (She'll have lots of help from her project manager/sister Stephanie and architect Ole Sondresen.) The space is three times bigger than her two existing stores and, although it has some great bones, is going to need a lot of work. With that, we'll hand it over to Jen for the first installment of what will be a weekly Friday feature on the blog until, well, until opening day.
A self-confessed fashion and real estate junkie, I am always plotting and planning new branches and outposts of the store – baby bird, green bird, bird dog, birdhouse, birdbath. My current stores, both located in typical 20’x40’ townhouses, are approximately 800 square feet, and I carry over 100 women’s designers. You can do the math. There just isn’t any extra space for adding new products. So I started thinking bigger. Instead of opening five separate small stores, why not put everything under one roof – a one-stop shop for the urban Brooklyn family?
My planning showed I would need at least 2000 square feet, and I knew I would probably have the best chance of finding a space that size in an area with an industrial history like Dumbo, Williamsburg, or even Manhattan. I’d already spent a good deal of time trying to make something work in Dumbo, and gone round and round with every major developer there including Walentas, Guttman and Boymelgreen. Nothing ever worked out. So I followed a few leads in Manhattan, including a dream space on Orchard and Broome, a generic storefront on Grand and Mercer, even an old church in Chinatown. Earnest Sewn beat me to the punch for Broome Street, and the jaw-dropping prices of everything else I saw in Manhattan left me feeling a bit woozy. Try keeping a straight face when a broker tells you the asking rent is $360,000 per year!
This left Williamsburg. I saw a promising listing on Craig’s List for a 2,500-square-foot space on Grand Street, but in a typical bit of real estate cat-and-mouse, the broker wouldn’t disclose an exact location. We booked a meeting for the next afternoon and I found myself looking at a former spa with a striking iron façade. I loved the exterior, and wouldn’t need to install a new storefront, a big plus. The interior was another story. It was full of peach painted drywall, awful etched glass, fluorescent lighting and two, that’s right, two Styrofoam dropped ceilings. I didn’t even want to think about how much the demo would cost. On the other hand there were extremely high ceilings, beautiful clearstory windows, a 1,250-square-foot extension with three functioning industrial skylights, and a second, beautiful storefront on North 1st Street. Not to mention a perfect, never-been-used cedar sauna! It wasn’t hard to see the potential. Even the basement, flooded with natural light from glass sidewalk panels, with its decrepit doors, vaulted brick ceilings and exposed stone support walls was just dreamy. I couldn’t believe it. All this and seemingly very cool landlords? There must be a catch. I just kept reminding myself of one of my father’s favorite sayings, “It’s not the good deals you miss that hurt you, it’s the good deals you get.”
More photos on the jump...
May 1, 2008
StreetLevel: Starbucks Sweet on 4th Ave.?
Gowanus Lounge reports that the western corner of 4th Avenue and Third Street is rumored by an "informed reader" to be the future location of a Starbucks. The site, which sold last year for $3.25 million and is currently being rehabilitated, is across the street from the Novo and on the same block as Staples and Hotel Le Bleu. A real estate executive we spoke to who was involved in the sale of the property said there's truth to the Starbucks talk, though its owner declined to comment on the matter. Is there room on 4th Ave. for more than one Clover?
Fourth Ave. Bulletin: Hot Corridor Getting a Starbucks? [Gowanus Lounge] GMAP
Photo of site from GL; photo of drink by Miss Peach.
April 30, 2008
StreetLevel: Vintage Boutique Opening in the Slope
Next Wednesday the somewhat moribund 7th Avenue retail scene will get a breath of fresh air via a new clothing shop opening on Lincoln. Except the clothing will actually be old, and the business in question, 1 of a Find, is a couple storefronts east of 7th Ave. The new store is the brainchild of a woman named Honey Moon (name c/o "hippy parents"), a transplant from San Fran who ran a couple vintage stores in Sonoma in the early '90s. More recently, Honey's been selling her sizable, frequently updated collection on eBay. In addition to a supply of vintage threads updated on a weekly basis, the Slope store (interior pic on jump) will carry clothing from small indie designers who use recycled materials, as well as pieces that are restyled in-house (for example, hemmed '70s dresses). Honey says she wants the store to have "something for everyone," both size- and price-wise. While she's going to carry couture pieces, she also intends to have things in stock like '80s shirts that cost around $15, and most dresses will run under 100 clams. Basically, the store is looking to be a more carefully curated Beacon's or a cheaper Olive's. Right now 1 of a Find's hours are Wednesday through Saturday 11 to 7 and Sunday from 11 to 4, though those may be extended. GMAP
Continue reading "StreetLevel: Vintage Boutique Opening in the Slope"
April 28, 2008
StreetLevel: 4th Avenue Nightspot Draws a Crowd
The large new high-end club on 4th Avenue and Garfield Place, Garfield's, was jumping last Friday evening. The nightclub, which has been open for a couple of months but only seems to welcome patrons every so often, was hosting a benefit for the corrections officer killed in Brooklyn last week, according to one of the people lined up outside the club. Any readers been inside this place?
StreetLevel: Night Fever on 4th Avenue [Brownstoner] GMAP
April 23, 2008
Streetlevel: Crown Heights Bar Goes to Bed Early
Crown Heights bar Franklin Park will open its doors for the first time this Friday—and will close at 2 a.m., according to the bar's website. We were wondering if its 2 a.m. closing time had anything to do with the fact that most of its space, 1,200 square feet, is outside. The inside is 800 square feet. Last week, the New York Post reported that the city's traditional 4 a.m. closing time "is facing its last call because community boards are approving liquor licenses for new establishments only if they close at 2 a.m." Totally lame, unless you live next door, of course. Franklin Bar co-owner Matthew Roff, who also co-owns Southpaw in Park Slope, told us the earlier closing time was more of a business decision, to initially gauge the street life in the area before staying open all night. At any rate, from 3 p.m. until 2 a.m. Franklin Park will be serving these beers on tap: Coney Island Lager, Kastel Rouge, Green Flash IPA, Schneider Weisse, Raddelburger, Ommegang, Six Point Righteous, Blue Point Toasted Lager, Original Sin, Jever, O'hara Irish Stout and Stone Pale Ale. The bar and beer garden is at 618 St. Johns Place, a few blocks from the Brooklyn Museum. Bring it on.
Franklin Park Bar & Beer Garden Coming to Prospect Heights [IMBIBLE]
Last Call: 2 a.m. Closing Time a Sobering Reality [NY Post]