Gotham Food on Columbus between 72nd and 73rd closed last year after 44 years.
Rents are too damn high everywhere, and it looks like high asking rents are contributing to a slew of retail vacancies on Columbus Avenue, which has generally had few vacancies in recent years. The Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District, which represents the area from 67th to 82nd and bragged three years ago about having zero vacancies, now shows 14 vacancies. The vacancies include the spaces housing Clarins on 71st and Think Closet on 75th. Here’s the full list and map (pdf).
The Commercial Observer took a close look at the Columbus Avenue market and found that some brokers think landlords need to temper their expectations a bit. Rents have gone through the roof.
While some folks say they see Upper West Side taking rents leveling off now, ground-floor asking rents between West 66th and West 79th Streets along Columbus Avenue rose 24 percent to $447 per square foot in spring 2015 from the same period a year earlier, according to the spring 2015 Real Estate Board of New York retail report.
Some brokers think landlords need to temper their expectations a bit.
He added that landlords are reading in the media about retail spaces going for exorbitant prices and thinking they can ask for more rent than is reasonable in their areas.
“Columbus Avenue has no billboards,” Mr. Evans said. “They are real stores. Rents have gone through the roof in a few specialized locations, and it has nothing to do with real commerce. And that hurts.”
Check out a music video called the “Columbus Avenue Blues” lamenting the loss of local stores.
The Gothamist had an article discussing why there are empty storefronts and sometimes there are a variety of other factors: https://gothamist.com/2015/05/13/vacant_storefronts_nyc.php
I crunched the numbers for space soon to be vacant at the Starbucks on West 68th Street and discovered only a few stores that could survive paying the high rent and making a profit. (I think the only retail model I came up with was an Apple or Microsoft store)
I wasn’t aware that Starbucks was closing.
Not surprising though. I think Starbucks doesn’t have too much of a problem with escalating rents as it gives them an opportunity to shut down the larger, older locations and move into smaller spaces which suit the company’s true policy towards customers.
Perfect example was the Starbucks on the Northeast corner of 98th/B’way (I spent many hours there). Presumably also because of higher rent, it shuttered more five years ago.
A couple of years later, Starbucks opens a much smaller store diagonally across Broadway, on Northwest corner of 99th/B’way (where the sporting goods/shoe store used to be).
This Starbucks is so small that they only have one common table with less than the number of seats (a NYC reg) requiring a public bathroom.
This relocated Starbucks also has no outlets for the customers.. not a single one.
And like most Starbucks throughout the city, they follow a 365-days-per-year policy of keeping temps frigid — it can be 18 degrees outside with a stiff wind and they still run the air conditioner!
Also, with a large blower constantly running over the door, and the rotten acoustics enhancing the holy racket made by the baristas, the message to the public is quite simple: come in, buy your latte, and get the hell out!
Oh sure, the WiFi is free, and you can sit as long as you want. And if you’re a penguin with an oversize bladder (with no prostate problems), fully charged battery on your notebook, and you’re wearing earplugs, you won’t mind it a bit!
Oh, BTW, that space on 98th/B’way has been occupied for several years by a 16 Handles. I guess if you’re selling over-sweet, gritty froyo to millennials, you can make enough to pay high rents.
Anyway, I’ve gone way OT. This really belongs in a new thread, “Finding an alternative to Starbucks — comfortable and quiet.”
The alternative to your use of Starbucks is simple — it is called the Public Library or alternatively, many of NYC’s public spaces. (Or, even, what about your apartment?)
Personally, I wish Starbucks instituted a policy of 20 minute maximum, like some fast food places have. And, why do you get the right to their electricity anyway?
I used to go often – a lot – every day – and then about two years ago I stopped going because every other time I went I got grossed-out by the smell or the homeless people hanging out – living – in the Starbucks who would often touch all the milk canisters and counters with their disgusting hands to make themselves shakes with the milk, cocoa and sugar. In some locations the homeless would just sit there with their bare feet and it would stink. In other locations they would be acting weird and it would get scary. In other locations they would lock themselves in the restroom for long periods of time. Just go to Joe’s!
So you are complaining that Starbucks business strategy of selling beverages and food, rather than creating a comfortable living room for you, is to blame. This is why many of the small (non-Starbucks type) coffee shops close all over NYC – you can’t pay the rent when the store is fully occupied by people camping out all day after buying a cup of joe (and asking for cheap refills).
One time I patronized a Starbucks on the East Side. I sat down in a comfortable chair to enjoy my coffee. Then a fellow walked over to me. He wore an expression that broadcasted, “You’re sitting in my seat.” I ignored him and then he gave up.
Hear, hear! I stopped going to Starbucks when it became impossible to sit down with my cup of my coffee, because of all the folks who had brought their computers and moved in for the day.
I’ve always fantasized about a coffee bar that posted a bright (remember “neon”?) sign in the window saying “No WiFi!” so that those of us interested in buying their product — rather than renting a temporary alternative living room — might be able to sit for a while.
I have to wonder whether that’s what’s driven Starbucks to smaller stores with little more than a purchase counter. If there are no seats, there are no places for the slackers to move into and no seats to be unavailable for the real customers.
I’m so glad the greedy landlord is taking a big old bath on the old Gotham Food location. It has now sat vacant for well over a year. No matter what they get for it, they won’t make back the rent they lost so far. It’s the little things in life that bring so much joy. Have a nice day greedy landlords – you suck! Let this serve as a cautionary tale to all the other greedy landlords.
totally agree – I miss Gotham so much. It was so convenient when I’d run out of that “one thing” I needed and the Pioneer was closed (Sunday) and I didn’t want to change out of my PJs just to run around the corner.
Also consider the “death” of american entrepreneurship as discussed in this Gallup Poll article:
https://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/180431/american-entrepreneurship-dead-alive.aspx
for the first time, EVER, since it has been tracked, more new businesses have closed than been started…with a precipitous decline in small business startups since 2008.
according to their data, there are 6 million companies with more than one employee, of which 4.8 million have 4 or less, ie “mom and pop”. These are disappearing.
Through the 2000’s new businesses outpaced closed ones by at least 100,000… per year..as much as 200,000 some years….NO MORE… now we are losing than 70,000 businesses annually…
This means less jobs, less collected taxes, decreased civil services….
why is this happening? How about stifling government regulation, fees, corruption.
How about the massive unprecedented Federal Treasury monetary intervention in the last 6 years that have impoverished middle class savers ( zero interest rate), while hugely filling the coffers of the elites….who then pay off the politicians of BOTH parties to maintain the status quo.
Excellent post…the Progressives running the city think there are no consequences for the over regulation! Guess we should all feel lucky that someone as smart as the mayor is on the watch. This is what happens when people who have only lived off government and “activism” are in charge.
And don’t get me started on the 0% rate…it’s very destructive on retirees.
Don’t you all remember when our local community activists said “that would never” happen when they brow beat the city council into passing a law limiting the frontage and size of stores in parts of the UWS? This is becoming commonplace on B’way as well. The limitations on size have made it next to impossible for a retail store to be economically viable on the UWS. The same thing happened when the did this on the UES.
It was supposed to “protect the mom and pop” stores. I have lived on the UWS for most of my 50 years and the mom and pop stores are long gone. Rather then limiting the size of the stores the city council would have been better off giving the landlords an inventive to rent to a small biz. Perhaps telling them if they did that at a lower rent rate the landlords real-estate tax’s would be made lower. That would actually allow small stores to compete.
Here is the thing Progressive UWSers, you want Progressive government, you want Progressive programs, you say tax the rich! Well who do you think it is who starts businesses and creates jobs? Poor people? No. You cannot dig into the pockets of business with well meaning policies that drive up the cost of hiring and then act surprised that no one wants to start a business. You call land owners greedy. They are not greedy, they need to get high rents to pay the high taxes you impose. See how that works? Why are Florida, Tennessee and Texas swimming in jobs? Low taxes, Low business regulations, no public employee unions, right to work laws. All the states that are suffering; New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, California, all have Progressive governments that see business as piggy banks who are there to serve the needs of the Progressive movement. As long as NYC has a Progressive government, don’t expect anyone to want to create a job. If we go to a $15 minimum wage, say goodbye to all job creation.
Right-like Florida and Tennessee or whatever states you’ve named have the same rents and cost of living as New York! Seriously, the stores on the UWS,- so, so many of them have been pushed out by landlords who raise the rent by as much as 6 times the rent of the current lease! I have known many of the small businesses who’ve served the communities wonderfully and were pushed out by rents bigger than their monthly gross!! The only ones who can afford to do remain in such circumstances are chain stores who often allow underperforming stores to promote the brand. It’s no mystery what has happened to the stores of the UWS. If you’re not a big box, a national chain, a Verizon-you haven’t got a chance of affording the real estate made such by greed-even when you’re successful you often can’t afford outrageous rents. When that lovely landlord says I want windfall profits even the Union Square Cafe’s of the world are pushed out of their businesses. If government doesn’t get involved it’ll soon be rows of empty stores-and maybe then the rents might go down!
Truth be told, I just moved back to NYC after a 20 year stint in Arizona. One of those “right to work” states you’re talking about. It has no heart – no soul and no good jobs. Yes they are full to the brim of big box stores and they have no unions. And the average wages paid there are so low they are virtually unlivable. I have a sister who still lives there. She graduated from a big east coast university but lost her job in telecommunications. After YEARS of unemployment she went back to school to become a medical assistant (not a nurse, not a physician’s assistant) just an average medical assistant and then went another year to specialize in medical records. Just so she could get an average job working in a doctor’s office, filing, putting on band-aids. She’s in debt for student loans and then spent a year not being able to find a job in that field. NOT ANYTHING. She’s now working in a call center (there are MANY of those kinds of mind-numbingly vapid) jobs available in those right-to-work states. It pays exactly minimum wage — same as McConalds. She can barely keep her head above water. She’s not a kid at middle age. Republican ideas of tax the rich and let it trickle down to employees has never worked. There is no “trickle down” they keep it all. They pay the worst. They outsource their jobs. They get tax breaks by manufacturing outside of the country. It’s not the small business that should be taxed – it’s the huge multi-billion dollars businesses and the billionaires. The middle class must survive. But in states without unions the working guy is broke – living hand to mouth. I’m happy and proud to be back in Manhattan. And proud to be a member of a union. I’ve got insurance, a pension and support of my union brothers and sisters. IMHO
What exactly does your rant have to do with topic of article?
Not to mention wondering what it has to do in relation to actual facts.
I love a good rant, but when it isn’t based in reality it’s just a crackpot with a computer.
Actually California has come roaring back under Governor Brown’s stewardship and is doing quite fine. He even got the residents to vote themselves a tax increase a few years back to aid in balancing the books (this in the land of Proposition 13 property tax caps). Yes, a tax increase can lead to prosperity too.
That is provided the tax increase actually goes to the projected plans to improve the area and is not siphoned off to some politico’s pet project/scam. Sadly the history in this part of the world is that tax increases go to improve the lives of corrupt politicians and their big dollar supporters.
Actually Texas is swimming in closed “big box” stores. The vacant stores remain, on vacant lots with weeds growing – buildings not easily re-purposed.
The greedy andlord kicked out Gotham Food (which had served the neighborhood for 50+ years) over a year ago …and the place is still stripped and vacant.
I miss Gotham Food so much. The readymade sandwich, pizza and salad place a block down isn’t half as good. Lenny’s is fine, but given a choice I’d rather not patronize a chain.
Lenny’s (or now it is I think Lenwich) may be a “chain”, but it is basically a successful UWS business. They started in the UWS and spread to more locations in the city. Please don’t call them a “chain”….if you want local businesses to be successful, that is a great example. Don’t mix them with a McD or Chipotle (which I love but are national, corporate chains).
Lenny’s is a NYC success story and is basically and local business — and one that I love to patronize!
I have been looking for 1500-1800 sq ft on the UWS for a dog training facility. The rent is ridiculous and some of the spaces have been vacant for months (The Ambar location on 70/columbus is on the market for 65000/month!) Im looking at harlem now, where small businesses can still afford make a living without sacrificing integrity
I remember that stretch of Columbus (72nd-76th) fairly well as it was the first UWS neighborhood I lived in, after a brief stay at the 23rd St. Y, just out of high school, too many years ago.
I’m sure retail space was much more stable then; though there was turnover of course, few stores remained vacant for long.
Now much has changed, and we have these periods of empty stores all over the UWS. I see a lot of it up around here (B’way, above 96th).
If these spaces remain empty for very long stretches, does that mean there are no more walk-in clinics, nail salons, and cell phone stores waiting to find a location? I think the banks and drug stores stopped expanding a few years back.
As for small food stores, eventually someone decides to give it a go, despite the high rent. They might survive if they charge enough for their products. Depends I suppose on the demographics of their intended market. One group — the one that is NOT getting a COLA for 2016 — won’t be shopping in these new stores.
Oooops… forgot we’re not supposed to say anything that relates to seniors on this blog. My bad.
Quite a few longstanding UWS shops and restaurants that closed due to rent (huge) increases – for example, Popover Cafe and RC Appliances – are still vacant, and at this point, it has been a few years.
Also worth noting that big commercial rent increases end up creating turnover. The East Village is a good example – longstanding, stable businesses forced out after decades. Now, new “replacement” stores and shops turn over in a year or two. Commercial rent gouging destroys viable neighborhoods and creates an urban “mall” streetscape.
There is no such thing as “commercial rent gouging”.
A landlord can only charge a rent that the market is willing to pay – not a penny more.
A landlord is trying to maximize his profit. He’s not running a charity.
Let’s assume you owned a commercial space that you’ve been leasing space to a mom & pop store. If the lease expired and a Chase Bank or a Starbucks came along and offered you twice the rent for the space I bet you would kick out the mom & pop store.
That’s life. Don’t throw around terminology you don’t understand.
Sherman, really? I think the empty storefronts speak that the market is unwilling to pay the ridiculously high rents that landlords are asking. No one is asking the landlords to rent to the lowest bidder. By the way, demeaning other people’s opinions makes you the one who doesn’t understand…..
It is true that landlords CAN operate by trying to maximize every penny of rent, but that doesn’t mean they MUST or SHOULD, or even that it is smart.
Something has gone wrong when a society considers that the only sensible way to act is by getting every penny you can get. That is not the measure of good or sustainable business.
All true and I hope you lead by example Erica! If you own an apartment I look forward to you selling it at below market value so a middle class or lower family can afford to be here and grace us with their presence and contribute to the economic diversity of the neighborhood.
Perhaps you should buy some commercial property and lease it to the business willing to pay the least in rent.
You go, girl!
I am not a commercial landlord, but I do engage in. commercial behavior every day. I’m an employer, in both my personal and professional capacity and do not pay the lowest wage I could get away with; I do not fire people the instant I don’t think I need them; I don’t slow pay my suppliers; and otherwise do not take full advantage of my rights. There is more to life than getting the last dime. Being decent is one of those other things.
What about the empty storefronts on the west side of Broadway between 77 and 78 Streets?
Childrens Place clothing store – gone, empty space
Hardware Store – gone – empty space
that restaurant that no one went to – gone, empty space.
And there’s the space between 73rd and 74th that once was a supermarket, then a temporary location for Tower Records, and most recently a women’s clothing store – empty too
Put in something for the kids?
Most of these empty stores and restaurants are in old pre-war buildings stuffed with rent-controlled/stabilized tenants. As such, the landlords oftentimes can’t meet their escalating expenses because the residents of these buildings pay artificially low (oftentimes ridiculously low) rents.
Therefore, landlords are under enormous pressure to raise rents on ground floor commercial renters (whose rent is not regulated) to get cash to pay their bills.
The result is empty storefronts and small business owners put out of business.
This is just one example of the egregious side-effects of rent regulation.
This is NYC liberalism at its best!
This is, with respect, a silly response. If the landlords need to raise money, they’re not going to do it by asking rents that no one will pay. That results in empty storefronts — and no rental income whatsoever to the landlord.
If you’ll go back to high school economics, when no one is buying what you’re offering, you lower the price. But the landlords aren’t doing that. Instead, they’re gambling that, if they wait long enough, they’ll get a tenant who will pay enough to make up for the time the store lay fallow. That, of course, does nothing but *raise* the landlord’s expectations, which translates to even *higher* asking rents.
If the owners are, as you suggest (and possibly with some accuracy), in need of current funds, they should be looking around them and realizing that there are more and more vacant storefronts. (In those same high-school economics terms, there is “increased supply”.) They need to realize that, in the face of increased current supply, to raise (current) cash they need to lower (current) prices.
But they’d rather gamble on the future than take in current funds. That shows the fallacy in your argument that the long-term residential tenants are making the owners desperate for current funds.
Can you spell “greed”??
What many here don’t realize when it comes to commercial leases is their term is usually 10 years. So a landlord often will wait it out for their asking price because they have to live with it for 10 years (often with minimal annual increases).
This is why when mom and pop’s lease comes up after 10 years, there is a big increase to current market rents. I would love to pay the prices from 10 years ago (especially subway and taxis) but it ain’t happening.
The landlords are not being greedy. Foolish perhaps, but not greedy.
The landlord owns the space and can do with it whatever he pleases. If he wants to keep his space empty with the hope of nabbing a high rent paying tenant that’s his right.
However, there’s a risk the space might stay empty for a while and he can lose money. That’s his choice.
You’re the one who said that the owners are “under enormous pressure … to get cash to pay their bills.”
How can you then say that “there’s a risk the space might stay empty for a while and he can lose money. That’s his choice.”
Which of you is wrong? Is the owner “under tremendous pressure” to raise cash immediately, or la-ti-da “taking a risk the space might stay empty” so that someday, maybe, the owner will rake in a bonanza? Anyone walking our avenues will see that the rents currently being asked will keep the space empty, and for a long time — that’s no more of a “risk” than the risk that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Can *one of you* spell “greed”??
So, you’re saying the free market works then? That people respond to price signals?
The goal of a “market” is the provisioning of goods and services to society.
Empty storefronts are evidence of its malfunctioning.
The answer is simple. The City, with the needed assent of the State, should impose a “vacancy tax” on any storefront left vacant for more than six months. Such a tax will create the incentive for owners to pay attention to the basic dynamics of the marketplace, rather than gamble on higher (and higher) rent from some future tenant that may, or may not, appear.
The owners’ greed motivates them to gamble rather than respect simple supply-and-demand marketplace dynamics. Raising their costs after a decent period, long enough to find another tenant at a *reasonable* rent, will make that gamble increasingly less worth their while.
Cato, I personally love this idea and it would work. Not moronic…..sensible.
This is, hands down, THE most ridiculous idea I have ever heard. It’s so moronic it prevents a proper rebuttal.
Punt.
Landlords are generally in the business of making money and an empty storefront is already a tax on them. If they are willing to speculate that someone else will pay more and the place sits empty, not sure how the landlord can be punished more than getting no income.
I assume you have some money in the stock market. Do you think it’s a good idea for the government to tax you because you keep too much money in your checking account rather than buying stock? Seems unfair, right?
High rents & lots of vacancies means collusion / cartel behavior that hurts all UWSers
When Trump is president all of these vacant storefronts will be filled.
No one denies that owners of commercial property are entitled to a return on their investment. However, there is a difference between making a reasonable profit and unmitigated greed.
The reason stores are empty all along with Upper West Side — Amsterdam, Broadway, and Columbus is the unrealistic expectations of landlord to keep raising the bar and asking for more and more rent.
I moved to the Upper West Side 20 years ago.
While cleaning up the area, making it safer, etc. are great — making it the bastion of the Uber rich stinks.
The very people who toughed it out in the bad old 80’s and made the UPS a great place to live are being forced out by greedy developers who only think about the bottom line.
A neighbor needs to have a unique character. This cannot happen without mom and pop shops and unique ethnic restaurants.
Unfortunately, those are almost all gone on the Upper West Side. This attitude that only rich people deserve to live on the Upper West Side in unconscionable. The neighborhood needs of mix of incomes and ethnic diversity to be a vibrant, exciting place to live.
You want to live in a gated community and only hobnob with the ultra-rich — go live in NJ or Conn.
My question concerning this is about zoning laws. Isn’t a certain number of feet or retail space at the street level a requirement for buildings on certain streets? I think this was thanks to Jane Jacobs, who (I understand) believed that a proliferation of local stores is essential to building street life and a sense of community. If that’s so, then shouldn’t there also be a requirement that these retail spaces actually be filled with operating businesses? Otherwise, what’s the point?
Folks I am in the biz. I get that people want what they want when and where they want it, and that old habits die hard. But stores come and go and always have. The sub-economy of local retail will find its equilibrium. What isn’t going to change is the diminishing of mom and pops. Why? Two reasons. Most people these days are way too lazy and risk adverse to operate a stand alone store, including you and me. Second, think of a mom and pop store as a home made suit. It has to be created from scratch. Just as nobody sews or plays their own music in the parlor, people want professionalism (and rock bottom prices too). You don’t darn your own socks and if you did they would cost more than buying a six-pack at Macy’s. NYC now has better prices for consumers than in the pre-national retailer age of little bodegas, and most of the whining here has an emotional origin, not a rational one. Remember the yoyos who lamented the ‘Disneyfication’ of Times Square and pined for knifings, hookers, and porn? Not much different.
Well said my friend.
I would like to add that the same bonehead liberals who are against Walmart opening in the city don’t take into account that low income NYers are the ones who will benefit the most from Walmart’s low prices (not to mention job opportunities).
These liberals believe that low income folks are better off shopping in the overpriced and oftentimes grungy bodegas that predominate in poorer areas.
It’s crazy how stupid liberals are.
Now, to review what you have written:
“But stores come and go and always have. The sub-economy of local retail will find its equilibrium.” – Only someone in “the biz” could utter those words. There’s either a shortage of judgement or integrity, can’t tell yet.
“Two reasons. Most people these days are way too lazy and risk adverse to operate a stand alone store, including you and me.” – To explain that the retailers are being kicked out due to their own laziness and risk aversion makes me tend toward thinking it’s a lack of integrity that’s motivated your comment. But, let’s just wait and see.
“Second, think of a mom and pop store as a home made suit. It has to be created from scratch. Just as nobody sews or plays their own music in the parlor, people want professionalism (and rock bottom prices too).” – Well now my vote skews towards a judgement problem; who can possibly believe that the clerks in these chain stores have professionalism? It was the people who ran their own place that were professional.
So, is it a lack of judgement or integrity. I wouldn’t want to misjudge you.
You gave yourself away with your opening sentence.
A big cause of the rent increases and inflation are the ever increasing real estate taxes that the city imposes each year on landlords. On a commercial space or building with a store it can be 6 – 14 percent a year. That increase is paid for partially by the retail tenant and causes inflation as most stores must raise their prices to pay for the increase. With inflation so low the RE increases are just crazy and hurt small landlords and small business owners.
Absorbency Rates (Ratio between space available and space rented) dictate the market – or SHOULD dictate the market – while homeowners do not get depreciation tax write offs when their houses don’t sell, landlords are rewarded for their bad behavior, and often NEED a write off – if we stop rewarding bad behavior, tax-legislatively speaking, we will continue to have empty stores. Also, offering tax incentives or help to small business owners moving into the UWS (like the business retiree organization SCORE) and the Small Business Association would go a long way to ensuring that businesses that DO move in succeed.