'The Icon variable'

Been meaning to note this long read from Curbed titled "The story of a store."

The piece explores the city's retail vacancy or the "luxury blight" crisis ... with a focus 0n 441-445 E. Ninth St. (aka 145 Avenue A), the six-story building that Icon Realty bought in 2014 for $10.1 million.

As we documented at the time, the existing retail tenants that made up the charming row of storefronts on the Ninth Street side were either not offered lease renewals or given massive rent hikes.

Meanwhile, all but one of the new tenants (four of five) who rented the Icon-renovated retail spaces were gone within a year. The casualties included BeetleBug, the floral design shop, Mahalo New York Bakery and Gelarto.

Writer Neil deMause talked with one of those tenants, Isiah Michael, who opened the Classic Man Barber Lounge in 2018. Per the article:

An investment banker who’d gone to barbering school, Michael thought he could make a go of it in the paired storefronts, even if the rent was a bit higher than he’d anticipated.

"What we didn’t expect was the Icon variable," he says. A series of mishaps — malfunctioning air conditioning, a continually flooding basement, and an unannounced electrical upgrade that Michael claims cost him and his partner $30,000 in lost equipment and inventory — led to legal battles with his landlord, and ultimately an eviction notice last February.

When Michael offered to bring over a lease payment he had been withholding in a dispute over repair costs, he says, Icon “responded saying they were terminating the lease.”

You can read the post at this link.

As for this building, there are three new tenants on the way in: Ralph's Famous Italian Ices & Ice Cream ... Village Crêperie ... and Social Tees.

Hopefully they won't suffer from the "Icon variable."

Previously on EV Grieve:
• On East 9th Street Dusty Buttons is closing after 125% rent hike: 'Saying goodbye will hurt like hell'

• The Upper Rust is moving away from East 9th Street and the East Village

Poke N' Roll for 9th Street

Apparently the Great Poke Trend of 2015-2016 continues deeper into 2017.

As this photo via EVG contributor Steven shows, a sign arrived on the front door at the previously vacant 441 E. Ninth St. for Poke N' Roll...



As Eater has noted, restaurants serving the Hawaiian fish dish are a dime a dozen now, though with several standouts. So we'll see where Poke N' Roll will fall on the Poke Meter. Don't know anything else about this operation at the moment, such as if it's related to the Poke N Roll in Glendale, Calif. (Probably not.)

And this is one of the long-empty storefronts along East Ninth Street in the Icon Realty-owned building at Avenue A.

The women's boutique Cloak and Dagger was in this small storefront, before relocating to the next block of Ninth Street several years back.

The building on the northwest corner was eventually free of retail tenants after Icon's takeover. (Icon Realty bought the building at 145 Avenue A for $10.1 million in April 2014, according to public records.)

After sitting empty for 18 months, the spaces got its first new tenant with the flower shop Beetlebug back in February, then GelARTo in July.

Previously on EV Grieve:
On East 9th Street Dusty Buttons is closing after 125% rent hike: 'Saying goodbye will hurt like hell'

Tenants and local elected officials speak out against Icon Realty