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
Tuesday night is 1/2 price wine by the bottle in many Brooklyn restaurants. Go out tonight and support your favorite one. I’ll probably go to Jolie.
This is a problem???? The LL in question are undoubtedly already lowering their asking rents to get these vacancies rented – its the way pricing works.
Many things in our society are being ‘repriced’ –
Right now there are too many brokerages and cell-phone stores — I’d expect one or more to fold.
In the last recession, they opened up a 99c store.
i would absolutely DIE if i didnt get home from work until 930. i dont care if i made a million dollars a year. time is too precious.
*rob*
“n reality it has always 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. They open up their new hippie style stores and so what if they pay too much rent and don’t make a profit! They have mommy and daddy sending them a check every month. They are so proud of their children. After all they have a business!”
Ding ding ding!!! The QOTD!!!!! Great Job!!!
The What (Hippies love skittles)
Someday this war is gonna end…
“Now, families and lawyers are living around here. They don’t really go out. They stay at home.”
he meant they don’t get home until 9.30pm
Oh it’ll work itself out. The market is very efficient.
***Bid half off peak comps***
starpower, I think the real issue is the conflicting clientele: the residents I agree are either young families who don’t go out at night or long-time residents who don’t go out at night. There do not appear to be a large number of young to middle-aged singles in the area. Then you have the very large population of downtown workers who represent the majority of the lunch crowd in the area. This encourages more chain-like stores/restaurants…the Verizon stores, Subway, etc. So we end up with an odd hodgepodge of stores on Montague, none of which appear to be overly successful. I don’t know how this will change.
I like the convenience of shopping on Montague Street and wish more stores would open up. It seems landlords are unrealistic about what kind of tenants will come in. Many of the spaces are small–you’re just not going to get a national retailer in there (except maybe a cellphone store-yuk), and real estate brokers aren’t in need of more offices right now. So take a chance on some new businesses, please.