What Exactly Is the Rent on 7th Ave, Anyway?
Allison | Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 6:56AM 
7th Avenue Landlords of Park Slope, what are you doing, dudes?
How many cellphones or cups of coffee would you need to sell, how many toes would you need to polish to pay the usurious commercial rents of 7th Ave? One recent listing in the NY Times: "Commercial space in PRIME South Slope! 1,600 sq ft: bargain-priced at only $15,000 a month.
A relative deal, this Craigslist classified: $7500/month for 1000 sq feet.
A 2008 article on the Real Deal said that rents along Seventh Avenue had risen to as high as $150 a square foot. That was the year when my belovedly mediocre Second Street Cafe went down for the count.
There are vacant storefronts on virtually every block of 7th Avenue and it's getting kind of depressing. Has somebody done a count?
I think we need to come up with some better business plans for the shopkeepers of Park Slope than the same old shoes, cellphones, and wife shops.
Show me your best new store ideas and maybe we'll send them to the Chamber of Commerce, which Erica was actually invited to join a few months back.
[ed note: we already have a good list started in Coming Soon to Park Slope].
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Reader Comments (1)
We thought of opening up a shop on 7th over a year ago, but there is no way I could pay the rent on our profit margins. Landlords are keeping the rents high to attract chains who are a reliable source of rent, rather than unproven mom-and-pops who make a neighborhood more desireable but don't have a proven record of success.