The 40-year-old Plantworks at 28. E. Fourth St. between the Bowery and Lafayette closed for business late last week, as Jeremiah Moss first reported.
The store, named the city's best plant shop by the Voice in 2009, was rent hiked out out here, with an increase that went from $15k to $34k a month.
A call to Plantworks confirmed that the outdoor Garden Center adjacent to the storefront will remain open this month Tuesdays through Saturdays.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Plantworks 'probably closing and not moving'
4 comments:
$15,000 to $34,000 - WHAT?!?!? That is greed and insanity, plain and simple. Bollocks
wow... more than doubling the rent, something is really wrong in this nabe. I weep for LES.
It would be helpful if this post actually had the facts to back up it's claim of the rent more than doubling. The truth is, Plantworks' lease had been up for many, many years and Plantworks was leasing the space on a month to month basis for many thousands under the neighborhood market value (in fact, it was paying $3k less than the $15k/month claimed in this post). The building did all it could to keep Plantworks, including making each tenant pay over $7,000 a year to help bridge the gap in income and keep the business afloat. Eventually, it became obvious that Plantworks would never be able to pay anything approaching market rent and the building was unfortunately forced to look for a new tenant. And that $34,000 figure? Absolutely false (however I'm sure the building wishes it could receive that much in rent).
That rent hike is insanely greedy. There will be a special circle in hell for such landlords.
- East Villager
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