Council member Gail Brewer’s efforts to limit the influx of banks and chain drugstores on the Upper West Side have taken the next step, as the Department of City Planning proposed a new amendment limiting the width of stores along Broadway, Amsterdam and Columbus avenues between 72nd and 110th streets, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The proposal would restrict banks to more than 25 feet of frontage, or about one-eighth of a block, along the three avenues, and other stores to just 40 feet along Amsterdam and Columbus.
“A lot of banks and drugstores and many other big-box retailers need larger spaces. To ensure that there are a good number of really small spaces, that’s going to really help independent businesses thrive,” said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future.
While the Journal noted that there is an obvious demand for the national stores — otherwise they wouldn’t move into the area — some Upper West Side residents believe that landlords are holding out their spaces for the chains and the higher rents and long-term security they offer. Brewer said there were 65 banks in her district, between West 54th and West 96th streets.
The Real Estate Board of New York has long opposed this measure, and continues to cite a similar experiment that failed on the Upper East Side along 86th Street during the 1970s. National chains moved in to the smaller spaces there and the zoning amendment was eventually repealed. [WSJ]
January 12, 2012 at 10:04 am, markpropertyshark said:
If Gail Brewer owned a UWS mixed-use building, then maybe she would know that what she is really doing is unfair to the city in many ways.
January 12, 2012 at 11:11 am, Retail said:
This is Manhattan, not the suburbs
January 12, 2012 at 12:24 pm, brokeroftheyear said:
How is this proposal limiting who you can rent to not some form of taking. It is beyond me to understand how I have to take renters in my apartments but am now being told that I cannot rent my storefronts to willing tenants who want to pay me and must break up my spaces and rent to smaller tenants for less money. This sounds like a form of RS for small stores?
January 12, 2012 at 12:26 pm, Harlemite said:
And the communist win another round.
January 12, 2012 at 1:30 pm, Retail said:
This Council member is anti-establishment …
March 07, 2012 at 1:38 pm, Community Board 7 votes in favor of restricting retail size on UWS – insiderater.com said:
[...] Upper West Side’s Community Board 7 voted 37 to 0, with some abstentions, to limit the size of storefronts in the neighborhood last night, Crain’s [...]
March 07, 2012 at 6:18 pm, UWS restricts size of retail spaces said:
[...] Upper West Side’s Community Board 7 voted 37 to 0, with some abstentions, to limit the size of storefront in the neighborhood last night, Crain’s [...]
March 12, 2012 at 10:12 am, UWS rezone | Community Board 7 | Retail Restriction | Посты said:
[...] Upper West Side’s Community Board 7 voted 37 to 0, with some abstentions, to limit the size of storefronts in the neighborhood last night, Crain’s [...]