8 JANUARY 17, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Kohl’s store
set to close
in Rego Park
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
EDAVENPORT@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
Photo via Google Maps
Kohl’s announced that they
will be shutting down
four of its stores nationwide,
including their location in
Rego Park.
Reports say that in addition
to the Rego Park store, located at
the Rego Center at 61-35 Junction
Blvd., Kohl’s will be closing down
their locations in Valley Stream,
New York; Lenexa, Kansas; and
Houma, Louisiana.
The announcement came one
year aft er Sears announced that
they would be closing down
their location at the Rego Center.
Kohl’s at Rego Center fi rst opened
in 2010.
A representative of Kohl’s stated
that they will be closing the
stores due to real estate and operational
costs. Employees at these
stores will off ered opportunities
to work at other Kohl’s locations
or to accept a severance package.
At this time, Kohl’s indicated that
the stores will be closed down in
the fi rst half of 2019.
In addition, Kohl’s plans to
open four new smaller format
stores in 2019, according to the
representative. The locations and
timing of openings for these new
stores have yet to be announced.
According to a recent report
from Kohl’s Corp., comparable
sales during the holiday season
(November and December 2018)
rose 1.2 percent compared to the
year before.
Kohl’s has another Queens location,
in Fresh Meadows, that’s
not aff ected by the closure.
Rentar Plaza renovation gets thumbs down from CB 5
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
It may or may not have been a last
ditch effort for redemption at
Middle Village’s Rentar Plaza, but
the development company operating
the site claims a proposal to add more
truck unloading bays could possibly
save the shopping center from becoming
a ghost town.
The only thing standing between
the development and achieving the
goal of replacing their former tenants
– Kmart and Toys “R” Us – was
Community Board 5’s approval of an
application to the city Department of
Transportation (DOT).
But during the advisory body’s Jan.
9 meeting, Board 5 members found it
less than an ideal condition to take a
vote since their decision was due to
DOT the following day — leaving no
time for the Transportation Committee
to hold their own meeting on the
plans and deliberate.
On those grounds, the entire advisory
council voted unanimously against
approving Rentar’s application on
Thursday night, according to Board 5
District Manager Gary Giordano.
“We’re opposed unless we’re given
the opportunity work something out
better,” Giordano said. “I got to make
a case for the community. My job is
to protect the pedestrians and the
drivers, not the business. I want to
help the business but never at the risk
of the pedestrians and the motorists.
Public safety comes fi rst.”
Giordano said Board 5 may take
another look at the proposal if given
more time or if there are any changes
to the proposal.
“We do not have a tenant lined up,”
Dennis Ratner, president of Rentar
Development, said in a call to the
Ridgewood Times. “We’re talking to
several different users and we need
some truck access to that section
of the building… If it’s going to go
retail we’re going to have to divide
it up.”
The proposal would allow truck
access by two bays in the front of the
building from Metropolitan Avenue
and asks for DOT’s approval for a curb
cut and a driveway.
The bays would be located about 125
feet from the exit to the parking lot to
the east of the building and require
the removal of two planters out front,
according to the plans. Since the raised
retaining wall planters were originally
installed with DOT’s approval on the
sidewalk, they now need the agency’s
blessing to be removed.
Felice Bassin from Rentar presented
the full plan to the community board
at the Jan. 9 meeting and argued that
Photo: Mark Hallum/RIDGEWOOD TIMES
with retailers like Target opting
against larger facilities, Rentar must
subdivide to make the shopping center
more attractive.
“The retail market has changed
tremendously, especially in the last
fi ve years,” Bassin said. “We are out
in the market looking for tenants to
that space, but I can tell you there isn’t
a tenant that can take or that will take
145,000 square feet today. They just
don’t take that size of store.”
Rentar feels it must break the
190,000 total square feet of the space
into three parts instead of just two,
and three tenants will probably not
be satisfi ed with current eight loading
bays located to the west of the
building.
July 2018 saw Kmart closing its
doors for good; that was preceded
by Toys R’ Us aft er the company fi led
bankruptcy in January. Now, the
developers are seeking permission
to modify the building for additional
truck loading bays.
R’wood, M.V. residents zero in on Target for Rentar site
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
A Maspeth woman calling on
Target to take over a space
in a Middle Village shopping
center left vacant by both Kmart and
Toys “R” Us in the same year and has
a grand total of 177 signatures on a
Change.org.
Charlene Stubbs, in her petition to
Target CEO Brian Cornell, believes
that a big box store would fi t well at
the Metropolitan Avenue location.
Rentar Development, which owns
the site, recently had its application
to build two new truck loading bays
in order to entice new tenants shot
down at the Jan. 9 Community Board
5 meeting.
“We do not have a Target in our
Community Board which consists of
Maspeth Middle Village Ridgewood
and Glendale. We have to go out of
the neighborhood to shop at one.
We lost KMart there in October so
now we have to go out of our area to
buy clothes books and toys which
most Targets I have been to have
a wide selection,” Stubbs wrote.
“There are so many houses within
walking distance of this store. I
can not see a Target failing at this
location. Please consider opening
Target here.”
In the petition, Stubbs argued that
grocery store options for people in
the area are far and few between
ranging between Western Beef at
47-05 Metropolitan Ave. and C-Town
at 75-43 Metropolitan Ave.
Dennis Ratner, president of Rentar
Development, told the Ridgewood
Times that the shopping center has
become a hard sell in recent years as
brick-and-mortar retailers are forced
downsize both the size and number
of their stores and the only hope for
the company is to subdivide the space
and off er more loading bays.
Ratner said he had been in talks
with multiple retailers but did not
off er any names since there are not
yet any bites.
Rentar is skeptical any companies
that take a subdivided retail space
would be willing to share the current
eight unloading bays among the other
tenants.
Photo: Jay Reed/Flickr Creative Commons
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