The recent spate of condominium growth in Prospect Heights and the subsequent gentrification has boosted demand for new retail stores, say residents, brokers and shop owners.
The neighborhood adjoining the Brooklyn Museum was once a quiet enclave for Caribbean families and African-Americans, characterized by a hodgepodge of shops catering to migr s. As refugees from Park Slope and Manhattan move in, upscale stores are springing up along the neighborhood’s major commercial avenues, Washington and Vanderbilt.
Now that there are 21 new residential buildings waiting to be occupied or finished, the area is about to explode, said brokers.
“You are going to see a huge influx of new residents in the next year, and retail, too,” said broker Brendan Aguayo of Aguayo & Huebener.
The problem may be supply, not demand, said brokers.
With its one-story auto repair shops, storefront churches, Jamaican patty shops and braiding stores, Washington Avenue is a picture of ethnic New York. But upscale shops like Caf Shane and Cuppa’ Tea are popping up.
Down the street from Caf Shane, Myrna Chin, a Chinese-Trinidadian immigrant, runs Sunshine Food Products, which caters to longtime Caribbean residents. Her shelves are lined with island products rarely found at Gristede’s: Foska Oats, Ve-Tsin powder and Mauby drinks.
Chin’s store and others along eclectic Washington Avenue lease anywhere from $22 to $33 per square foot annually, said Chadwick Castle, a broker for Massey Knakal. Rents are higher on Vanderbilt Avenue several blocks west, where they range from $25 to $47 a square foot. (Both are cheap compared to Manhattan, where retail space averages around $300 a square foot on the main retail corridors.)
Time and marketing know-how may turn Sunshine into a yuppie magnet on Washington Avenue, which is also home to the immortal Tom’s Restaurant, a diner that has been a neighborhood fixture since 1936.
On Vanderbilt, the transformation is already well under way, with trendy restaurants named Le Gamin and Aliseo Osteria del Borgo, food stores called Delicacies, and fashion and home furnishing boutiques such as Red Lipstick, Pieces and Fabrica.
Even so, melding old and new is not always easy.
Monatu Law, who emigrated from Virginia more than 20 years ago, runs Bob Law’s Seafood Caf at 637 Vanderbilt Avenue, offering Southern soul food to clientele who are “95 percent African-Americans,” she said.
But new condos will bring change. When apartments start selling at $300,000 and go past $1 million, some dislocation is expected.
There’s no shortage of buyers. Consider the Washington, at 35 Underhill Avenue (off Washington Avenue), where Aguayo & Huebner have already sold 28 of the 39 units.
Both the Washington and the Firehouse at 735 Dean Street, where four of five units are sold, are close to receiving their certificates of occupancy, said Aguayo, and will add to the growing number of new residents who have already moved into such projects as the 5-year-old, 140-unit Newswalk at 700 Pacific Street, which is in its last sales phase.
Retail reflecting those buyers’ preferences will follow about a year later, said Castle.
Aside from practical needs such as more dry cleaners, drug stores and supermarkets, new residents are attracted to stores that cater to their marketing preferences — for example, the Fermented Grape at 651 Vanderbilt Avenue, a wine store, instead of the older liquor stores, said Castle.
But new retail space may be hard to find, especially over 1,000 square feet, agreed brokers. The Washington will house one of the only such retail locations once it is ready, a 5,000-square-foot space, which will be rented or sold preferably to an “upscale grocer,” said Aguayo.
Barbara Dannov, who moved to the neighborhood a year ago with her husband, bemoaned the lack of choice for a supermarket, though she shops at the Met Foods on Vanderbilt. “Eating-out choices are pretty decent, but we need more take-out options of the cheaper and ethnic variety,” she added.
Lisa Jacobsen, a nutritionist with elaborate blond dreadlocks who also lives in the neighborhood, said for many things, such as organic vegetables, she has to walk 10 to 15 minutes away. While a new store called Natural Heights at 688 Washington Avenue sells natural products including candles, paper and soap, it doesn’t sell food, she said.
Anatoly “Toly” Dubinski is one entrepreneur who has found enough space in the neighborhood. His ventures include the Soda Bar, a popular watering hole on 629 Vanderbilt Avenue. He is developing a new 1,000-square-foot Mexican restaurant where he holds a 10-year lease, and pays about $3,000 a month.
His wife Natasha sells her colorful, spiked shoe designs at Sole on Vanderbilt Avenue, which she opened six months ago with a 10-year lease for 500 square feet at $2,500 a month, she said.
“It’s becoming more unusual,” said Peggy Aguayo, principal at Huebener and Aguayo (and Brendan’s mother), when told of the 10-year leases. Normally stores on Vanderbilt have lease terms of three to five years, she said.
Aguayo, who grew up in the area, recently sold a three-story building on 603 Vanderbilt for $1.3 million. It houses a 900-square-foot storefront where the rent will be raised from $1,400 to $2,500.
“I think,” she said, “Washington and Vanderbilt have the most potential in Brooklyn to become spectacular shopping destinations.”
Atlantic Yards’ possible effects worry merchants
Although there’s plenty of current opposition to the $4.2 billion, mixed-use Atlantic Yards project poised to transform the northwest edge of Prospect Heights, some residents, brokers and merchants are not against the development — but are instead worried it will take as much as 10 years to boost foot traffic to the area.
“I am not unhappy about [developer Bruce] Ratner’s development,” said Monatu Law, who runs Bob Law’s Seafood Caf at 637 Vanderbilt Avenue. Law said that she expects many of the 7,000 new residents to come dine in the more interesting ambience of the neighborhood over the sterile development.
But there is a risk that the neighborhood could lose its unique identity if African-American residents are pushed out by rising prices, said state Assemblyman Roger Green, a Democrat whose district includes Prospect Heights. “The real challenge will be whether or not those families will be able to afford some of the condominiums,” he said. He is asking the city and Ratner to create affordable housing using land now dominated by unsightly, “environmentally degrading” auto shops along the easternmost Atlantic Avenue.
But brokers said converting those properties will be difficult because of the need for variances and special environmental cleanups. Asked whether there was much land available for further development in the neighborhood, Massey Knakal’s Chadwick Castle said, “There is less and less by the day.”