Williamsburg’s transformation from arty enclave to a well-heeled, family-friendly area is in full swing, with developers readying thousands of residential units for the market over the next few years.
But as the neighborhood’s population gets larger and wealthier, concerns are mounting over its waterfront. Development critics and boosters alike wonder if the industrial stretch along the East River will serve as a default location for new retail space. If it does, its suitability for big-box national chains is another consideration.
Although small shops abound in Williamsburg, market watchers and residents agree that basic options for goods and services are relatively thin on the ground. The shortage will become more acute, they say, with new arrivals.
“With all the development, you’ve got anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 units planned for the area,” said David Rosenberg, an executive vice president at Robert K. Futterman & Associates. “Coupled with all the conversions of warehouse buildings coming onto the market, the people who are going to move in need basic goods and services. They need grocery, banks and pharmacies.”
Spots such as the area around the Bedford Avenue L train stop likely won’t change much from their independent mom-and-pop store profiles (see below), but speculation about the waterfront continues unabated. Planned riverside developments have a substantial amount of ground-floor retail space, and rumors are swirling about a big-box store setting up shop.
At Douglaston Development’s 1.5-million-square-foot luxury condominium the Edge, sited at Kent Avenue between North Fifth and North Seventh streets, current plans dedicate approximately 80,000 square feet to retail.
Robert Greenstone, president and chief executive of Greenstone Realty, the Edge’s retail leasing agents, called the big-box rumors completely inaccurate.
“If you look at Williamsburg, it’s all vacant land, it’s all derelict. You have an opportunity that you can either hit or miss,” Greenstone said. “We have no intention of putting a big-box retailer in there. We are respectful that this is not what the community wants.”
Rosenberg said a big box would probably never make sense in the neighborhood: “Williamsburg is not going to be a large enough regional neighborhood that you’re going to see Target or Home Depot there.”
While Greenstone declined to identify the Edge’s prospective tenants, he said that he wants to make the development “a destination” where the carefully selected group of tenants appeals to local residents’ tastes.
“People who live there love how cool and hip it is. If you look at Battery Park City, it’s too antiseptic. New York is a city of shoppers, and I understand that tenant mix is critical,” he said. “When I think about what I’m going to put in, do I choose a Payless or a Prada? I think people who are going to eat at [popular Williamsburg restaurant] Sea want Jimmy Choo.”
Faith Hope Consolo, chairwoman of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s retail leasing and sales division, said clustering stores together makes sense in Williamsburg.
“A development like the Edge is where you have the most potential, because no retailer wants to be standing alone,” she said. “When we looked at the [yet-to-be-developed] Domino Sugar Factory, we explained to them that they needed a city within a city there.”
At the Schaefer Landing development on Williamsburg’s Southside, 12,000 square feet are set aside for retail, and 1,000 square feet are already leased by a dry cleaner. For the rest, “[what] we’re hoping for is a grocery store like a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or Gristede’s,” said Alex Capoccia, a sales associate with Halstead who is marketing the site.
If the neighborhood’s retail makeup isn’t radically altered by a big-box store, it’s likely changes will be gradual but include more national and luxury brands. Gyms such as Crunch or New York Sports Club are also expected to fill the larger spaces.
“I think we’ll see more and more high-end retailers,” said Yuval Vidal, an associate broker for Barak Realty who has been active in residential sales in the Williamsburg area for the past couple of years. “It will become more like Soho or the West Village.”
“You can look at Williamsburg in a similar light to what we saw in Soho 20-some-odd years ago,” said Rosenberg. “Will Williamsburg ever be a Soho? I doubt it. But there is the potential for it to be a vibrant area for retail.”
Although high-end stores are likely to thrive in the neighborhood, some chains may find it hard to break into the market, though a Subway sandwich shop has opened in the area.
“It’s challenging for national chains to open up in Williamsburg. People living there want to go to organic stores,” said Mark Lively, Massey Knakal’s director of sales for the Greenpoint/Williamsburg market. “I don’t think a McDonald’s will do well in the neighborhood.”
Bedford a bedrock of indie retailers
Williamsburg’s main drag, Bedford Avenue, is a good fit for small mom-and-pops and independent cafes partly because retail spaces there are on the small side.
“On Bedford Avenue you’re hard-pressed to find a space over 3,000 square feet. To some extent that quaintness will remain in the future, since you can’t fit larger stores there,” said David Rosenberg, an executive vice president at Robert K. Futterman & Associates. He added that any large retailers that come in will need to go on side streets like Kent, Wythe or Driggs.
Rents vary on Northside Williamsburg’s streets and avenues, according to Mark Lively, Massey Knakal’s director of sales for the Greenpoint/Williamsburg market. In terms of the major thoroughfares, they range from $60 to $80 a square foot on Bedford Avenue and between $40 and $50 on North Sixth Street up to Wythe Avenue.
Rosenberg estimates that a large space on a side street would rent for around $30 a square foot, “although it really depends on the space or the project.”