Fulton Attracting 'Manhattan-Type' Customers?
The Observer has a Q&A with Al Laboz—chairman of the Fulton Street Mall Association and one of the strip’s big property owners—in which Laboz talks about new businesses like H&M coming to the corridor. He has this to say about the demographics stores are looking to cater to: “Now that downtown Brooklyn is experiencing a…
The Observer has a Q&A with Al Laboz—chairman of the Fulton Street Mall Association and one of the strip’s big property owners—in which Laboz talks about new businesses like H&M coming to the corridor. He has this to say about the demographics stores are looking to cater to: “Now that downtown Brooklyn is experiencing a renaissance, with 5,000 new apartments being developed in a four-block radius, we’re getting a new type of highly educated … I’ll call them the Manhattan type of customer. And the challenge that we have on Fulton Street right now is really to keep our core local customer while also embracing the new customer that’s starting to come into Fulton Street.” Laboz also says “major, large-scale retailers” are eying 505 Fulton. Meanwhile, a reader sent in the photo above yesterday, which shows that work’s kicked off at the future home of the Shake Shack on the Fulton Mall—not a Laboz property, but certainly an example of one of the commercial corridor’s newcomers.
Albert Laboz Has a Mall in Brooklyn He’d Like to Sell You [NYO]
Seems to be a non-issue.
Fulton Mall seems fine to me based on the few times I’ve been there.
Mr Laboz has the right to rent to whomever will pay him the most. If the current tenants are doing well, presumably that will be them. If he can get more from new tenants that’s fine as well.
I will say macy’s has gotten better. At least now you can find someone to take your money.
“It seems as if people are just !!amazed!! that stores not aimed at their demographic have thrived”
Yep. Those stores keep the doors open and pay rent, so there must be a market for their wares.
I’m mystified that the precious little boutiques on 5th Avenue move enough merchandise to stay in business, but I can accept that they do.
Rental prices on the Fulton mall are some of the highest in the city. It doesn’t need to change into stuffwhitepeoplelike to be financially successful.
That street of “crumbling commerce” has long been one of the borough’s most successful shopping districts. Forgive those of us who don’t want to pay 8 bucks for a cup of coffee or think that $50.00 for a pair of socks is a waste of money.
One has to expect change in a dynamic city. For the past fifty or sixty years the changes have been pretty dramatic on Fulton Street, there is no reason to think that suddenly everything will stop in its tracks and remain the same. For all its problems, Fulton has the advantage of excellent public transportation. It is a true hub for people who come from all over the Boro. I think it will continue to be a hub except that it will reflect new trends in consumer demand and new demographics. No trying to stop that.
To me, the most depressing thing to hear would be that change was slow in coming and that no one wanted to move in to the stores that had served out their leases and served out their purposes. That would mean the street was dying.
Pretzel, it doesn’t make you racist. It just means that that stretch of commerce doesn’t represent what you wish to shop for. That’s all. Nothing else. And the fact that many people still do shop there, keeping those stores going, means that that stretch of commerce does represent what they wish to shop for. That’s all. Nothing else.
There is nothing wrong with a mix. I think everyone would benefit from more choice. If only it could be done without what is happening now, code words like “Manhattan type of customer”, and the all or nothing mentality that wants to turn Fulton St. into the Short Hills Mall.
Laboz should be ashamed. Those un-sophisticated non-Manhattan types made him, and many of his associates, quite rich. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Or, to extend the metaphor, extend your hand to pet an animal you don’t know.
This is truly great news for the non-ghetto people of Brooklyn as large upscale to medium scale retailers populate the mall thereby increasing property values surrounding the neighborhood. More importantly, if Bloomberg were to truly want to cement his legacy, he should propose knocking down the ghetto PJ’s and shipping the inhabitants off to Jersey.