High Rents Killing Montague Street
With a high concentration of wealthy residents and plenty of nearby businesses, Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights should be a vibrant retail strip but it appears to be a victim of its own overinflated sense of self-worth: Eight storefronts on the five-block stretch are now vacant, victims, The Daily News reports, of too-high rents. “The…
With a high concentration of wealthy residents and plenty of nearby businesses, Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights should be a vibrant retail strip but it appears to be a victim of its own overinflated sense of self-worth: Eight storefronts on the five-block stretch are now vacant, victims, The Daily News reports, of too-high rents. “The common denominator is high rent,” said the Brooklyn Heights Association’s Judy Stanton. “Little businesses will come here if they think they can make a profit, but it handicaps itself with the high rent.” Recent casualties include Heights Books (which is moving to Smith Street), Blue Rose and Spicy Pickle, which by all accounts wasn’t any good anyway. Do you think landlords are going to get a clue?
Montague Street Hitting the Wall [NY Daily News]
Photo by tosca2002
i don’t understand why a high end restaurant wont work on montague. maybe families and lawyers don’t go out on weekday nights.. but they sure do on weekends. 2 saturdays ago i tried walking into jack the horse at 8:30 (90 min, and couldnt even sit at bar to wait), henrys end (hour), and noodle pudding (90 min). ended up going to smith st.
I know of nothing in the tax code that makes it advantageous for commercial landlords to leave their places vacant. As the owner of a small storefront, I try to rent it right away when it’s vacant. I also try to rent it at a high enough price to cover my mortgage expenses and RE tax, which continues to spike like crazy. I’m forced to try to obtain a monthly rent that I think is above what the market seems willing to bear.
The demand for storefronts isn’t huge. When showing the place I had expected to meet dynamic, entrepeneurial folks and I did meet a few. But many of the people looking for spots for their business seem either like they’d have a tough time getting jobs elsewhere or, curiously, had a bipolar vibe. I didn’t come across anyone that seemed to be bankrolled by parents.
I lived in the Heights from 1998 to 2003. Although there are multiple large apartment buildings, I think alot of homes are occupied by people who either work all the time or use the place as a second or third home. Montague St. gets alot of traffic from the courts, City workers from downtown Brooklyn, LI College Hospital workers and tourists, not so much from neighborhood residents.
In recent years the conversion of portions of the St. George Hotel to student housing (and maybe some traffic from Dumbo) have done wonders for the stores on Henry St. This past weekend I went to the movie theater there and the street was bustling, not so with Montague.
Look if the cocorean Real Estate Group resides there what do you think that tell you? I smell high rents and high commisions. Someone has to pay for that and it not going to be me.
Anything going on with the Blue Pig/Busy Chef locations??? I’ve had business dealings with the owner. Caveat emptor.
Montague Street is a convenience street for downtown brooklyn and basic services for heights folks. Not going to be high end because heights people, as they say they do for restos, shop in manhattan for fancy, as do most all of us. while that is evolving, let’s face it. further, heights is one of lowest if not lowest ‘occupant per unit’ areas of bk, so has little population compared to amount of homes rents are coming down and will come down for next 2-4 years, depending on guess what
Montague has never been a “landing runway for young business hippies that immigrate here from other places not having a clue about business but having a sturdy shoulder because of mommy and daddy’s wallet back home”
Or at least not in the 30+ years I’ve lived there.
As a kid it was mostly fast food type stuff. Burger King, Hebrew National, Nick and Joe’s pizza (and Randazzo’s). College Bakery. Promenade Restaurant. Happy Day’s and Grand Canyon. Blimpie’s. Baskin Robbins and Haagen Daza. Bars like the Montague Saloon, and more.
Places like Blue Rose and Spicy Pickle thought they could survive on the buzz of the street alone. They couldn’t and left. Regardless of rents a bad business will fold before too long.
DIBS – it gives them something to do during the bus ride.
It always takes a big storm to blow away stagnant air. Sometimes they brew up on the Great Plains, sometimes on Wall St. But down on Montague, they started dealing in trust-fund slaves and something inside of em died.
But seriously folks, what is in the tax code that makes it easy for landlords to warehouse not only storefronts but apartments all over the city? Anybody know? Figure there must be some overgenerous provision that allows Archstone to carry all those absurdly priced empty apartments for months on end.
What gives hannible the daily “reach around.” Predictable.