Commericial Real Estate & Rumors

We spoke w David at Kensington Realty on Friday. For those who have seen the hair salon for rent sign on McDonald near Albemarle the space (500 sq. feet) is a bargain for him at $1750. We also talked about a pizza shop that will soon be for rent on Church Ave. He was hesitant about mentioning which pizza shop but when we asked if it was Joe & Joe's he said no and when we asked if it was Korner he said we should come in to talk. If it is in fact Korner there are two catches... the first being the rent. David said the monthly tab will be about $3000 but the owner is willing to negotiate to maybe $2400 (to me this means it starts at $2400 and you negotiate for less). The negotiable rent is probably because David is trying to sell the current business for $60K. He was quick to note that any restaurant that goes in there would have a bulk of what it needs - fridge, ovens etc. (we didn't ask about a beer and wine license). He also mentioned the monthly revenue of the space to be about $24K. Because of our experience with realtors we rarely take much of what they say for fact but wanted to put it out there.

On another commercial space note the location on Fort Hamilton near Thai Tony's is available. We spoke to the owner last week and for the area it's a real bargain at $1300 per month for 1000 sq. feet. The problem for anyone who wants to open a restaurant (or bar) is it's across from a school and down the block from a church. We're not sure a license would be allowed since there is that pesky 200ft rule.

We've seen lots of places on Church Ave sitting empty and catch ourselves hoping they stay that way for a bit so these greedy landlords realize people are quick to their game. When we spoke with David last week we mentioned the insanity and the lack of business diversity and he made sure to note people should just come in to talk. In the NYC real estate game it seems the novices always pay but experience would tell you its all about negotiations.