This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef, the four-plus-year-old restaurant known for mixing beef and Cheese Whiz at 149 First Ave., closed for good this past March.
The listing arrived for the storefront between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street back in April.
An East Village resident with an interesting in leasing the address looked into what it would take to open a business here. The reader shared that information with us to illustrate what it takes to pay for a small retail space around here these days.
The asking is $9,500 rent per month, with another $50 per month in real-estate taxes. So that would be $9,550 per month.
$9,500/4 = $2,375 per week in rent
$9,500.00/30 = $316.66 dollars a day in rent
The store is 10 feet wide by 50 feet deep without a garden. (The broker said that it was 500 square feet on the top floor and 500 square feet in the basement. They are counting the basement as a rentable floor.)
The landlord wants six months up front plus the first month's rent. So just to lease that space ($9,550 x 7) you'd need $66,850. For the year: $9,550.00 x 12 = $ 114,600
Aside from rent, there are the renovation costs … and then the ConEd bill, insurance, trash pickup, phone/Internet, credit card processing fees and various taxes, and so on. Not to mention payroll. And something for the owner.
Per the resident: "What can you sell legally in a 10-foot-wide space to generate all that income? I'd like to know."
Find a PDF of the retail listing here.
24 comments:
Perfect location for a Chase Branch.
Or the 'big boys' 7 11, starbucks, .. etc, will just wait or offer to take the next space plus this and there you have it.
Lord knows our Community board doesn't give a Fuck if there is another 45 7-11s or starbucks or chases in our hood.
Q: "What can you sell legally in a 10-foot-wide space to generate all that income?"
A: BOOZE!!! AMERICA'S DOPE FOR DOPES! now why don't one of you give me a beah
Where and when will it end? As more leases expire in the EV expect current businesses to balk at the typical tripling of rents and either close or move to an affordable neighborhood like the upper east side. These spaces are too small for chain stores, don't get the foot traffic to attract corporate outpost like ATT so we can expect to see a lot of empty storefronts in the coming years. There goes that "artsy area with lots of fun small shops" tagline.
Who can afford it? Aretha Franklin said it best "Chain chain chain" (you have that song in your head now!)
The East Village was so vibrant and in the past 5 years or so it's eerily similar to my hometown of Flint MI.
On Ave A I can count 10 empty storefronts and I quit counting. There are ENTIRE blocks of empty storefronts. And the prime corner spaces? Empty.
I wish the real estate bubble would burst already. The neighborhood looks depressing and its sad.
All that said, that space is WAAAAAY overpriced, even by the usual inflated market values. As I recall, 71 Clinton - four times the size, at least - is going for about the same rent, AND it includes a 4AM liquor license. The rents aren't THAT different a few blocks Northwest. This seems to be a case of the landlord intentionally setting the price too high - probably because they own other properties nearby they want to rent sooner and it'll make those places look like a "better deal" by comparison.
Sorry to be Mr Obvious but these rents are choking off the entrepreneurial spirit. Seems like there is no incentive for any would-be small business owner to even attempt something around here, no latitude to try and build something (interesting) from the ground up. Only pre-existing businesses with established customers are welcome (cough cough, Subway), is what these landlords all seem to be saying.
The mall-ification of New York if you will.
The real estate industry seems to operate differently from any other business. I see storefronts empty for years at a time. You would think this would drive down rents but it doesn't. What other business can survive with that model? Could a grocery store have product unsold on its shelves for years at a time and survive? Could a bike store have years of unsold inventory and still keep its doors open? What gives?
froyo in a hoof!
artisanal air-only cafe store! (to complement that molecule-water store)
dessert with golden flakes or other golden treats
Caviartery® (there's already a Caviarteria)
an EV outpost for Budin Cafe!
Salvatore's Legacy drinkery!
Sweet Surrender cupcakes!
biscuits! biscuits! biscuits! now serving alcohol (would you like biscuits with your wine and cocktail?)
Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Drunk. Drunker. Drunkest.
I believe I heard that landlords are allowed to write off losses that come with empty storefronts. If that's the case, they have no monetary incentive to lease a space if someone doesn't come up with their exorbitant rents. Perhaps if that little loophole were eliminated we might see not only more reasonable rents that would promote entrepreneurship in the neighborhood, but also long-standing businesses being able to remain where they are, instead of being pushed out by greed.
Empty Storefronts??? I'm not complaining! Maybe we need more of them, not less. Maybe if we had a neighborhood of empty storefronts, fewer tourists would want to hangout and fewer bars would come to serve them, if they're not here.
Ya can't have a really nice neighborhood, and not expect outliers to come and exploit that. I'd be happy close down as much of the area as possible and de-incentivise real estate. Let's be boring, dirty and cheap until the greedy go elsewhere.
6 months up front is NOT normal. In many instances they GIVE you a few months of rent free occupation to build out your business. This to me is an even bigger sign of the downfall of the business in the EV. There is no way any mom and pop business could ever bank their dream on 6 months up front. Total BS.
Streets full of empty store fronts will allow the seedy element to creep back in.... It will sart to feel like Ave D on Ave B. This will cut down on traffic and the high end population will get cut down and landlords will be chasing commercial tenents to rent their spaces. All these new apt buildings going up will certainly feel the pain in the next couple of years. I agree, the next step to returning to a more liveable EV will be the move in of some bigger chains; a few years of them and it should go down hill quick!
A lot of hopeful or wishful thinking but the only way for commercial rents to come down to earth is when people no longer rent them. The new "restauranteur" invading the EV is the latest player in the game. Building mini dinning empires with themed restaurants which in reality are just glorified bars are taking over. These idiots will pay just about anything to show off to their restaurant buddies of their apparent success. The other way rents would come down would be another economic or financial disaster on the scale of 2008 times 3.
Agree with Bowboy - let them remain vacant. Pro nightlife CB members like Palitz and Joy as well as some of the not too creative members on the economic development committee, use the threat of vacant storefronts to push for more nightlife. The longer a storefront remains vacant the better chance we have of the rents going down. A little urban-blight isn't a bad thing when the alternative is another bar or restaurant. The best chance we have is if we become less popular and people move on to the next happening neighborhood.
money chases cool and eventually prices everything out, domino effect. standard. EV hasn't been that cool for the last 10 years. only thing "real" left over are the bums finding safe havens outside recently closed restaurants, shitting all over avenue A. lovely
@3:28pm, I live across the street from the Bowery Mission, and still, only hope to have more of what you have. Folks on my street take too good care of it, cuz it's where they sleep, but weekend crowds throw up in my doorway regularly.
But I wouldn't confuse "cool" with "real". The rep' of cool lives on long after real has gone.
Seems like the best chance of getting our neighborhood back is for the bars/clubs/restaurants to out number the patrons (and we're getting close). Once owners learn that it takes less than a year to lose all their money opening an establishment in the area, then they will seek a better supply/demand ratio elsewhere.
rent joedough better lease and reasonable landlord. contact on the store
how much of a premium does a food-service capable storefront demand over a standard shop without the venting fixtures and whatnot that is required?
Who owns this building? I like the theory that it's there to show prospects something shitty and expensive, and then sell them on something else that's less shitty but more expensive.
Ruining the entrepreneurial spirit? It's an investment not a neighborhood and our retail rent laws (or lack thereof) testify to it. This is where DeBlasio can make a real difference if he has the balls to to stand up to the real estate moguls instead of caring about drink size.
The landlord is a dope. And what's this new bullshit about where they include the basement space as rentable square footage!? I had a broker try to pull this move on me at a space on St Marks off 2nd Ave. With a straight face they were asking for 32,000 per month WITHOUT the basement. Taking basement meant tacking on another $12,000. Right, because all of us shop owner run the entire business on one level. I laughed at the guy and walked out. That whole strip of shops, including a space that housed a 7 Eleven, now sit vacant.
Diamonds are always a good, compact moneymaker. No basement required for storage—just bring your own safe.
If the landlord is part-owner of the business and does the build-out for you then perhaps a small business could rent the space. It is a common model used by some of the notorius EV landlords as a way to reduce rents and lock in businesses.
As someone who once owned a business in the East Village that was 10 feet by 50 feet, I can guarantee you that space is NOT that big. Many landlords count the walls in the measurements, which means that space is either 8 or 9 feet wide, my guess is 8 if they are lucky. I can't comment on how long it is, I never saw the back of that place. If I walk past there soon I will do a quick measurement from the outside.
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