Manhattan’s struggling retail scene appears to get all the eye. Evidently for each absolutely or largely leased, high-profile hall like Broadway in Soho, there’s a stretch filled with yawning vacancies — akin to on Broadway in Tribeca.
However Brooklyn’s retail image is rosier. Though wounded by pandemic shutdowns and the rise of on-line buying earlier than then, a lot of the borough seems in remarkably sound form. You won’t know there was ever a disaster if you happen to stroll alongside 86th Road in Bensonhurst, John Travolta’s “Saturday Evening Fever” stomping floor, which has few darkish storefronts.
Now, a brand new report from the Actual Property Board of New York paperwork the retail resiliency in such fashionable neighborhoods as Williamsburg, Cobble Hill, and Greenpoint. The information compiled from April to October discovered that sturdy demand “contributed to a depletion of storefront house in prime corridors as Bedford Avenue South in Williamsburg, Court docket Road, and Cobble Hill and Franklin Road in Greenpoint.”
The shortage of obtainable storefronts drove retailers to hunt new places in “rising corridors” together with Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Montague Road in Brooklyn Heights, and Flushing Avenue in Bushwick.
REBNY additionally studies that surging tourism prompted nationwide retailers and franchises to open shops or discover choices in Downtown Brooklyn and Park Slope. Amongst them are: Burlington, Dealer Joe’s, and Lifetime Health.
It’s even helped lure manufacturers from Manhattan, akin to Japanese outside life-style model Snow Peak, which moved from Soho to Williamsburg.
Astoria challenge permitted
In the long run, the Metropolis Council voted to approve plans for Innovation QNS, the five-block mixed-use complicated in Astoria. We reported final week that the total Council may nonetheless nix it regardless of the blessing of its personal zoning subcommittee.
However props to Council member Julie Received, who got here out for the proposal after earlier saying that the sooner approval was “solely preliminary.” Received had fought to have the challenge embody extra inexpensive housing items than the builders first provided.
It appears like a contented ending throughout.
