As retail rents continue their skyward trajectory along Williamsburg’s Bedford Avenue, local shops are departing for other Brooklyn locales and Manhattanites are moving in.
L&L Nail & Spa has shuttered at 193 Bedford Ave., and Newmark Grubb Knight Frank broker Gal Horovitz is now marketing the spot with an eye toward Manhattan-based businesses. Having already brokered a deal with Juice Generation, which currently boasts 10 Manhattan locations, he pointed to the area’s uptick in vacancies and increasing number of Manhattan newcomers as the natural state of a hot neighborhood.
“I don’t think there is any question that where the market is when they signed the lease and where it is today is different,” Horovitz told Bedford + Bowery of the departed tenants. “It comes time to sign a new lease and they may look at the price and say this doesn’t make sense anymore.”
Among the artery’s recently-departed are Vietnamese restaurant An Nhau at 172 Bedford, Polish eatery S&B Restaurant at 194 Bowery and New York Muffins at 287 Bedford. Men’s boutique By Robert James relocated from its Bedford pop-up shop to A New Location On Grand Street, and clothier Vice Versa — formerly located in the same building — shuttered and relocated to Bushwick for a “better deal on rent,” shop owners told Bedford + Bowery.
Among the replacements are Idlewild Books, a Flatiron-based shop with a new outpost inside the 218 Bedford Ave. mini mall, and Wild, a new 340 Bedford Ave. pizzeria with another location in the West Village. [Bedford + Bowery] — Julie Strickland