Right here’s a modest proposal that may get me laughed out of business real-estate journalism:
If building of a new luxurious house tower forces out modest little eating places at their sidewalk stage — as is going on up and down Second Avenue on the Higher East Facet, typical of many high-traffic Manhattan streets — the next new tower should even have modest little eating places after they’re accomplished. Even when it means giving lease breaks to cafe house owners who couldn’t in any other case afford to be there.
In any other case, the developer will obtain no zoning variance to construct taller and bigger (as many initiatives require) and no certificates of occupancy from the Buildings Division, which all require.
Wait! You ask: Shouldn’t landlords have the precise to lease out their retail area as they select? Is free-market fanatic Cuozzo all of the sudden calling for lease management or an unconstitutional “taking of property?”
Hardly. The zoning code is already advanced sufficient so as to add a rule or two with out turning the Huge Apple right into a Marxist re-education camp.
Present zoning guidelines go far past prohibiting Ferris wheels on Madison Avenue.
They’re devices of political and social engineering — typically with welcome outcomes, typically not.
They restrict, for instance, what number of ft of road frontage shops could have on the Higher West Facet — a provision supposed to maintain out financial institution branches and huge chain shops.
Massive new buildings within the Theater District should reserve 5 % of their area for entertainment-related makes use of and embrace a number of expensively mounted brilliant lights.
New house buildings should present giant numbers of parking areas at the same time as town urges folks to make use of mass transit relatively than automobiles. Many Garment Middle properties should dedicate a sure share of area to apparel-making makes use of — though there’s nearly no demand for any sort of apparel-making area in Manhattan as of late.
However there’s an immense and overwhelming demand for small eating places of each delicacies on Second Avenue, as there’s in lots of different neighborhoods present process large-scale redevelopment. There’s each motive for town to make use of its zoning powers to guard them.
Second Avenue on the Higher East Facet nonetheless boasts myriad delicacies selections — Italian, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Persian, Center Japanese, and Chinese language.
A Guatemalan/Mayan spot simply changed an Indian one, which had earlier changed a Burmese one.
However for the way lengthy?
The eateries are an integral a part of the neighborhood cloth.
Folks will spend thousands and thousands of {dollars} for a apartment house at Naftali Group’s rising 255 E. 77th St., not for the doubtful status of dwelling on truck- and bus-congested Second Avenue, however to avail themselves of the (slowly dwindling) array of world tastes at their ft.
The approaching of the Q subway line ignited a growth growth.
Small nook buildings fall like dominos, or are about to fall, between East 67th and East 86th Streets. Most weak are Nineteenth-century tenements with low retail rents that house owners of small Asian, South American, and Center Japanese eateries can afford.
So many luxurious towers are going up that Second Avenue might in the future resemble more and more sterile Third Avenue, the place storefronts that had been as soon as dwelling to small eating places and retailers at the moment are full of magnificence salons, spas for people and canine, laser clinics, and walk-in medical workplaces.
Some years again, site-clearing for the luxurious apartment tower on the northwest nook of Second Avenue and East 74th Road swallowed up 5 widespread eateries — Italian, Irish, Afghan, Turkish, and Moroccan — unexpectedly.
Demolition plans for a venture at East 77th Road ousted Japanese spot Sushi Hana and Hello-Life lounge. A more moderen plan at East 73d Road chased out French bistro Jean Claude, Afghan Kebab Home, and elegant Italian spot Il Divo.
A brand new tower at East 78th Road uprooted Sable’s Smoked Fish and Lenwich sandwiches.
Subsequent within the crosshairs is Vietnamese cafe Two Wheels on the East 71st Road west nook, the place the small constructing’s new proprietor has pushed one retail tenant after one other.
Restaurant house owners who need to keep within the neighborhood face a troublesome selection: both transfer to higher-rent Third Avenue, as Sable’s and Lenwich did, or to lower-traffic First Avenue, as Zucchero e Pomodoro did, and closed inside a 12 months. Afghan Kebab simply adopted the Italian place to this presumably doomed location.
Much more galling, no building has began at many websites the place eating places needed to shut.
They stay holes within the floor or empty of occupants as builders anticipate building loans.
Only a few Second Avenue builders had the foresight and the means to lease valuable sidewalk-level area to eating places — comparable to La Pecora Bianca at 1562 Second Ave. and Blue Mezze at 1480 Second Ave.
They’re uncommon exceptions to the choice for financial institution branches, which pay astronomical rents and are regarded by landlords as “clean” makes use of that draw no vermin.
However the phrases of the prophets are written on the demolition notices.
Town ought to act earlier than Second Avenue — nonetheless Uptown’s liveliest avenue for strolling and noshing — is starved for locations to eat.
