32real estate Popping Up: Creative Retail Leasing Right after Thanksgiving I started seeing people inside Bricktown Bagel at Borden Avenue and Vernon Boulevard during late evenings these past few weeks and thought to myself: fi nally, owner Mike is selling some coffee and food after 5 p.m. or he is renting the space for meetings and private parties. Good for him! Apparently I was one of the last few next-door neighbors to learn that another restaurant has set up a pop-up shop daily inside Bricktown after 6:30 p.m. Mu Ramen, serving dim sum and a few main dishes, is slowly getting dinnertime traction inside a bagel store which bursts with BY DAVID DYNAK activity from 7 a.m. through lunch, but has never been able to sell the locals for after-work pick up or dinner. Instead of selling its gluten, egg and deli salad creations, Bricktown is “selling” its location, space and use of the kitchen equipment to a whole separate entity with a totally different food concept/cuisine. It helps pay the rent, serves the community scrumptious low-priced food, and everyone wins. Odd, you may say, to fi nd a ramen spot inside a bagel joint, but it seems to be working. And it does not have to be an instant success, the pop-up sub-tenant has limited overhead. With retail rents going up and consumers still careful with their wallets, changing the way retailers do business may be the only way to save local neighborhood retail. Another case in point – a high-end martial arts gym has made an offer on one of our Long Island City listings. A few unique caveats I have never seen before. They would take two non-contiguous stores in the same building, but one smaller and immediately, Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews For more information contact me today! For more information contact me today! Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 matthew.adess@wellsfargo.com www.wfh.com/matthew.adessa NMLSR ID 150138 Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 matthew.adess@wellsfargo.com www.wfh.com/matthew.adessa NMLSR ID 150138 For more information contact me today! Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 matthew.adess@wellsfargo.com www.wfh.com/matthew.adessa NMLSR ID 150138 For more information contact me today! Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 matthew.adess@wellsfargo.com JANUARY 2014 I LIC COURIER I www.queenscourier.com Information is accurate as of date of printing and is subject to change without notice. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2013 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. NMLSR ID 399801. AS986409 Expires 8/2013 Information is accurate as of date of printing and is subject to change without notice. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2013 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. NMLSR ID 399801. AS986409 Expires 8/2013 Information is accurate as of date of printing and is subject to change without notice. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2013 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. NMLSR ID 399801. AS986409 Expires 8/2013 and the other, larger/main store at a later date. This way they get a head start on building awareness – establish the gym’s location – while they build out the main store and prepare for a launch. They want the option to remove the smaller store off their lease after a year if the business can’t support both stores. Plus a tenant option on the industrial loft space above to possibly extend the main gym area two stories, locked in today at a cheap warehouse rent, in case interest in memberships explode in two to three years. In this case, the landlord may agree. If they are successful, he’d want to keep them and let them expand. If they are slow to grow, he gets the smaller, already-vacant spaces back in a short while, all while not losing ability to market and show all three spaces. There’s more – can they put in a small, stand-alone health food deli in one of the corners with window service directly onto the street? Bit confusing but may actually work, win-win through via some creative leasing strategy. Whether through new or improved technology or some creative real estate play, commercial tenants and their landlords are learning new tricks or breaking out old one, but with newly added kinks, to not only offset rising rents, but sometimes simply to lower their risk and eventually thrive a lot better from one revenue source. Maybe this is the way the local children’s toy stores or gift shops and bookstore will somehow survive the internet shopping and trending pull towards big-buck-only retail. After all, we never knew we’d need wash-n-fold service or 1,000 types of craft beers just 20 years ago. So the next time you pass by a coffee shop in the morning, make sure to look out for a meeting place in the afternoon and a theater at night. And go inside to support them. David Dynak is a real estate broker at First Pioneer Properties and an LIC resident. He’s lived in Western Queens since 1993.
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