Window dressing for empty spaces

Jeff Cohen saw too much empty retail space in the city. And three years ago, he and a few others decided to do something about it.

“There were plates and plates of empty fronts,” he said. “We saw a need for outdoor advertising.”

Cohen is now the business development director of Inwindow Outdoor, a New York-based company that specializes in high-profile advertising on storefronts that otherwise would gape empty at the passing world, creating both an eyesore and a financial drain.

“Landlords were being hurt by not having a revenue stream,” said Cohen, once a top broker with Citi Habitats. “They weren’t using this space, they weren’t getting any money from having this space empty. So, we said, ‘Hey, we’ll pay you to advertise.'”

Inwindow Outdoor is part of a growing trend in New York, especially Manhattan, where otherwise unused ground floor retail space is either rented or donated temporarily by landlords to advertisers, nonprofits and arts groups, or to so-called pop-up stores that rent space for short spans of time. Although landlords assume greater liability than if they left the spaces empty, they do get revenue by temporarily renting or, if donating, potentially greater exposure for a particular address; everyone else gets space that otherwise would simply be too expensive to rent.

One group recently cleared what it called a milestone in locating vacant space, mostly in Midtown as well as in Downtown and in Queens, for artists and nonprofit arts groups.

Accessing Real Estate for the Arts, an initiative of the theater company Chashama, announced in early May that it had acquired 100,000 square feet since its founding in 2004. The group provides insurance for its tenancies and facilitates the paperwork on behalf of artists.

The milestone was reached with the donation by C & K Properties of 4,000 square feet of gallery space on West 31st Street. Other AREA donors have included the Durst Organization, Forest City Ratner, George Comfort & Sons, Brause Realty, and Newmark. (Chashama’s artistic director Anita Durst is the daughter of developer Douglas Durst, who heads the Durst Organization.) The combined rental value of this 100,000 square feet, according to AREA, was more than $3.65 million a tad beyond the pocketbook of your average emerging artist.

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“We developed our AREA program to make landlords see how easy donating space can be,” said Cathy Nanda, Chashama’s associate artistic director. “From what we understand, it is less of a liability to keep properties empty than to donate or give space out cheaply. So, unless they are doing it as a favor, they really see no reason to take the risk.”

Brause Realty recently donated space for theater performances in what was once a Long Island City bank branch near Queens Plaza. Chashama noticed the empty space in a neighborhood already increasingly home to more artists and approached Brause about the donation.

“From our perspective, it was a win-win,” said Brause vice president David Brause. “They gave us more exposure for the space. And it’s positive for Long Island City in bringing more people there, especially after dark. If you think about it, it’s always the artists who harbor the changes in a neighborhood. You saw it with Soho and Tribeca, and now you’re seeing it with Long Island City, the changes for the better.”

Chashama committed to cleaning and emptying the space when the theater group finishes with it, as well as repainting it basically returning it to the look of the former bank branch. The group has transformed 22 properties like this since 1995, Nanda said. The effort was dubbed AREA in 2004.

Those craving spaces for advertising, of course, do not anticipate such donations. Prices then are generally negotiated based on the size of the space, its location, and the duration of the ad campaign, Cohen said.

Depending on several variables including the size of the space, the number of posters and the length of time the posters would be up a landlord in a five-window store, for instance, would get about $1,500 per month, Cohen said.

Posters recently went up in vacant spaces on a corner straddling West 14th Street and Ninth Avenue, and on Grand Street in Soho.

Cohen said the posters cut down on what he termed the “visual noise” polluting many New York streets that hodgepodge of fliers and homemade ads stapled or taped to bus stops, storefronts, etc. in favor of something more pleasing to the eye. For landlords, he added, higher-end advertising on the empty fronts of these Class A and Class B buildings can snatch the attention of prospective tenants, which may translate into a decrease in vacancy rates.

“At the end of the day,” Cohen said, “it’s a great idea for landlords.”

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