Streetlevel: Nigerian No Time Soon in Fort Greene
Fort Greeners who’ve been waiting with bated breath for the Nigerian restaurant to open at the corner of Lafayette and Cumberland are going to have to wait a little longer. As it turns out, all the work on the ground-floor space—including new storefront windows—was done without permission from either the Department of Buildings or the…
Fort Greeners who’ve been waiting with bated breath for the Nigerian restaurant to open at the corner of Lafayette and Cumberland are going to have to wait a little longer. As it turns out, all the work on the ground-floor space—including new storefront windows—was done without permission from either the Department of Buildings or the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Oops. That kind of mess could take months to unwind.
Streetlevel: Nigerian, Not Thai, for Lafayette [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB
The first tenant holding a lease was the bodega posse across the street. They’ll give you a different story…suffice to say, they didn’t meet most, if any, requirements of the lease.
The second lease is with the Nigerian restauranteur.
The timeframe, at this point, is anyone’s guess…
Fair enough, 12:24–thanks for backstory.
So does this mean the “first tenant,” as you describe him–the Nigerian restaurant, right–is now out of the picture? And do you know the timeframe it will take for the owner to get the place back on the rental market?
It’s a great corner, and it would be nice to see something cool go there.
Look,
It’s not crooked or some massive underhanded thing going on. As we all know, the building is not that thrilling to look at and what has been done to it hasn’t changed it for the worse,
The owner has been in the neighborhood for over 40 years running his business on the ground floor.
He worked hard and looked to retire and rent the space. He succumbed to the pressure of the bodega guys across the street who wanted to set up the son in a business but may have had ulterior motives as well.
The lease with them had all the bells and whistles and required permits, reserves, owner approvals, licensed contractors, etc.
Once the bodega owners got in, they had some kids immediately doing demolition (without securing permits) who cut out the main central beam. The upper floor started falling in and emergency repairs were needed. A ton of steel, money and work went into shoring up the building all handled by the owner.
The owner got retroactive permits for the work. The interior has not changed in terms of layout. It’s still one big open space. What was done after the steel work was mostly cosmetic. What appear to be “new†openings are actually openings that already existed but were closed when the owner took over more of the store spaces in the building. There were originally 3 or 4 businesses on the ground floor but the owner took over the spaces to expand his dry-cleaning business.
The window and door configuration on the front (Cumberland side) were put back as they were when the owner bought the building. The owner had changed the entry years ago and pulled the windows back to create a covered area in front of the door but decided to go back to the way it was.
The fence is legal in terms of the property line.
Maybe the work is not gorgeous/top flight but it’s better than what was there. Sure, with a huge investment, maybe, a “Victorian†recreation could be made like the one on DeKalb…
We shouldn’t knock the owner/restaurant as doing something heinous. The owner has periodically gotten permits, etc. and intended with the rental that the new tenant would also do everything above board. Unfortunately, the first tenant did not and led the owner into a costly and upsetting drawn out process.
Please, 11:44. America is synonomous with all types of fraud. Subprime Slime, Iraq, Katrina…shall I go on? What’s wrong with the U.S.?
Crooklyn, once again.
11:44,
That was tasteless and has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
I’m not surprised. I was wondering how they got approval for the cheapo iron railing they bolted into the sidewalk around the building.
The Nigerian connection and the lottery fraud. Stop sending me those millions $$ UK scam e-mails. What wrong with these peeps?
sidestepping permits doesnt pay, it costs! Budding business owners, please research what you need to do before opening a business. I see this sort of stuff all of the time. Mr. B is right, it will take minths to get the permits straight. Now, the restaurant is so much further in the red before they’re even close to opening.