8 SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Still no replacements for Kmart and Toys R Us in Midville
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
With Kmart currently running
closeout sales and Toys
R Us having closed months
ago, the Rentar Plaza in Middle Village
has two large storefronts with a
murky future.
When reached over the phone on
Sept. 11, Dennis Ratner, president of
Rentar Development— which owns the
facility — confi rmed to the Ridgewood
Times that the company has not yet
been able to fi nd new retailers to move
into the doomed Kmart and already
vacant Toys R Us.
As part of a nationwide series of
closures in January aft er fi ling for
bankruptcy, Toys R Us announced
that it would be closing the Middle
Village location. In July, Kmart also
announced that the Rentar Plaza
location would be included among nationwide
closures of Sears and Kmart
stores, and it is expected to shut down
sometime in October.
While Ratner explained that Rentar
is “talking to a number of people”
about taking over the commercial
spaces, he said that it is not close to
making a deal with a potential suitor
at this time. Ratner added that the
“general retail market condition today”
has proved to be the biggest challenge
in fi nding new stores to move in, and
mentioned that “there is a lot of retail
vacancy in Queens at the moment.”
Indeed, the downfall of former corporate
giants Toys R Us and Kmart is
evidence that the brick-and-mortar retail
industry is in jeopardy. In Queens
alone, Sears closed a location in Rego
Park last year, another Kmart is closing
in Rosedale in September and the
Babies R Us in College Point closed
earlier this year. Last year, a Macy’s
in Douglaston closed as well as 14 CVS
locations and eight Walgreens/Duane
Reade locations in the borough.
Rentar Plaza alone has been home
to a number of retail chains that have
come and gone since it fi rst opened
in 1972. The same space where the
Kmart is currently located was
home to Robert Hall, Times Square
Store and Caldor, all of which went
bankrupt.
The Toys R Us site was previously
a Waldbaum’s Supermarket, which
relocated to the Metro Mall — located
below Rentar Plaza — during the 1980s.
The Waldbaum’s at Metro Mall closed
in the 2000s and was replaced by BJ’s
Wholesale Club, and the Waldbaum’s
chain itself faded into history back
in 2015.
According to Ripco Real Estate,
the Toys R Us and Kmart vacancies
are being advertised as a combined
space for a potential “big-box”
store. When packaged together,
the two stores offer a total of approximately
200,000 square feet
with eight interior loading docks
and more than 1,000 parking spots
on the roof.
The properties, which are on the
market for the fi rst time in 20 years,
would be available as of February 2019,
according to the listing.
Image via Google Maps
The Rentar Plaza on Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village.
Glendale owner explain struggles of rebuilding after fi re
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
June 24, 2017, was supposed to be a
night of celebration for the members
of the Albanian-American
Islamic Center in Glendale, as the next
day marked the end of their month of
fasting for Ramadan.
As an added bonus, the owners of
the mosque just launched a promising
investment six months prior by purchasing
the commercial buildings next
door at 72-12, 72-10 and 72-08 Myrtle
Ave. Just aft er 9 p.m. that night, however,
their excitement quite literally
came crashing down.
“It was really terrible,” said Edin
Gjoni, Imam of the mosque. “We were
expecting people to be in here, and the
mosque was fi lled with smoke.”
The Farmer’s Market at 72-10 Myrtle
Ave. suddenly went up in fl ames and
the four-alarm blaze gutted the property,
including the two apartments
above it and a restaurant supply store
beside it. Since then, the ownership
group from the mosque has seen their
investment turn into a complete loss
as they constantly fi ght to restore the
property to what it once was.
Gjoni, along with mosque vice
president and co-founder Cazim
Mustajfa and secretary Nazim Hodzic,
welcomed the Ridgewood Times into
the mosque on Sept. 6 to tell their story
aft er local residents began raising concerns
about the burnt-down buildings
that are still in a state of disrepair. In
a previous article highlighting those
concerns, the Ridgewood Times had
been unable to get in touch with the
mosque before press time.
Some of the primary complaints
were about the expired permits for
the sidewalk shed and shoring work
from the fi re. Despite claims from
the community that the building
had never been worked on, Hodzic
explained that all of the shoring work
to make the interior of the buildings
safe, structurally sound and remove
the food and other debris has been
completed.
Hodzic also explained that he
renewed the permit for the sidewalk
shed as of Aug. 1, which is now posted
at the site.
Their struggles with DOB began
much earlier, however, when in February
the ownership group’s initial
request to reconstruct the building
was denied by the department. According
to the zoning resolution
determination form obtained by the
Ridgewood Times, the request was denied
because no structural assessment
report or construction drawings for
the project had been fi led yet.
Since the destroyed buildings were
non-conforming but grandfathered
into the current zoning, the owners
needed that determination in order
to rebuild them to their original state.
Without it, they would have to build a
structure that was conforming to the
zoning laws.
A DOB spokesperson in the previous
article had no knowledge of this denial.
Then, the architect for the project,
Gerald Caliendo, secured a meeting
with DOB Queens Borough Commissioner
Derek Lee who gave his permission
to go ahead with the intended
plans, Hodzic said. Aft er several more
months went by, the mosque fi nally
received the offi cial plans from Caliendo
and the pre-fi led work permit appeared
in the DOB records on Aug. 29.
While the project is fi nally making
some headway, the confusion and
miscommunication along the way has
been crippling for the owners.
“The biggest victims of all this are us,”
Gjoni said. “We were in a lot of debt,
and every day actually we are losing.”
The drawings shown to the Ridgewood
Times describe that the site will
be restored to its original state, with
three commercial units on the ground
fl oor and two apartments above one of
them. Aft er that, the owners intend on
eventually adding a second fl oor with
studio apartments above the other two
commercial units as well.
Gjoni, Hodzic and Mustajfa ultimately
wanted to make it clear to the community
that they have been “fi ghting tooth
and nail” to get the reconstruction of
the buildings underway. One of the
last hurdles is to fi nd a contractor that
will do the work, and the owners are in
discussions with interested companies.
First opened in 2002, the mosque
has become entrenched in the community
and every one of its board members
serve on a volunteer basis, Gjoni
said. They have sacrifi ced more time
than they ever planned on, but they
also expressed their gratitude to Lee,
Assemblyman Mike Miller, Councilman
Robert Holden, the 104th Precinct
and others for supporting them and
off ering to help in many ways.
“It’s really been an excruciating
process, and we have been working
all the time to hopefully bring it back
to something that will help the community,”
Hodzic said.
Photo by Ryan Kelley/Ridgewood Times
link
link
