Residents hope retail space on Manhattanville campus will go to local businesses (Columbia Spectator - 1/21/15) #HarlemEd: Columbia University in the City of New York EXCERPT: Columbia has hired Winick Realty Group to find businesses to fill three retail spaces on its new Manhattanville campus—a move neighbors hope will boost, not hurt, local business. The businesses will occupy the first three stories at the base of the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, which is currently under construction on the new campus. The three available spaces—all between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet—will be reserved for a takeout food store, a general retail store, and a restaurant, according to the New York Observer. According to a statement from a Columbia Facilities spokesperson, Winick was chosen for its expertise in New York City real estate. The broker’s website prominently lists available properties in Midtown, Times Square, and the financial district, and lauds Winick for working closely with “some of the most prestigious companies in the United States.” In looking for tenants, Winick “will explore a variety of concepts and operators including proposals from a diverse set of experienced retailers,” the statement read. Columbia has been holding meetings with “local community leaders” to discuss opportunities at the site. But advocates of affordable housing and real estate in Manhattanville said Winick’s prestigious reputation may mean local businesses are overlooked in the tenant recruitment process. Daniel Marks Cohen is a member of Community Board 9, which oversees the community district that includes the Manhattanville campus, and the director of real estate development for Housing Partnership, a citywide affordable housing nonprofit. “It’s unlikely that any of the tenants will be local business,” he said. “You don’t hire Winick Realty” for that, Cohen said. “If Columbia wanted to do right by the community, they should commit to making one of the spaces a local business.” Cohen said that the choice of a high-profile realtor like Winick will enable Columbia to find more profitable retailers to fill the space. “It’s really a matter of trying to maximize the profit,” he said. But not all locals felt negatively about the decision. Ramon Diaz, owner of Harlem’s Floridita Restaurant, which is one block away from the new science center, said new business will bring more customers to the neighborhood. Diaz was unfazed by the prospect of national chains, rather than local businesses, being offered the space. “You would expect that it has to be national chains or people with big pockets,” he said. “They’re not going to rent that space to just anyone.” While Diaz said that although many current residents of the neighborhood are starting to get priced out of the area by rising rent costs, he expects that longtime Manhattanville residents will likely try out the new retailers. Diaz said that he expects the new retailers to be relatively upscale, which would be good for Floridita’s business because of the added competition. “I think they’re forcibly going to have to be upscale,” Diaz said of the new businesses. “It’s not going to be a McDonald’s.” Still, Cohen expressed concern that choosing Winick, which serves national clients such as Starbucks, Chipotle, and AT&T, increases the chances that a chain like McDonald’s will move in. Cohen said that a restaurant such as McDonald’s would attract both Columbia students and neighborhood residents, while a high-end restaurant would be out of the price range of most existing Manhattanville locals. “Call me cynical, but I don’t really think those businesses are going to be for the neighborhood,” Cohen said. But Cohen admitted that because of the new money coming into the neighborhood, the new retailers are neither a positive nor negative development. “More economic activity begets more economic activity, so I guess you can’t really call it a negative,” he said. Lizette LeBron, the service director for Dinosaur Bar-B-Que—located next door to Floridita—said that the new businesses have the potential to be a positive change for the neighborhood if local retailers are offered the space and people from the area are offered jobs. “I really am hoping for local businesses,” she said. “I think that’s what best serves the community right now.”
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:27:38 +0000
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