WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES NOVEMBER 11, 2021 19
THE RACE TO DELIVER
impacting NY’s real estate market
Many landlords are worried about the prospect of
delivery workers milling around outside the store,
he said, but he hasn’t found that to be a problem —
Gorillas employees aren’t gig workers like Uber Eats
or Doordash employees, and the dark stores do have
break rooms inside where couriers can sit down
rather than waiting for their next order outside.
While Gorillas is certainly well-funded, they do
have a cap on how much they’re willing to spend on
a lease, he said. Getting started during the pandemic,
when rents were lower, gave the company time to get
a “good foothold,” he said, and the company was getting
established before the boom of quick-commerce
apps. As they’re just looking for storage, he said, Gorillas
might get a little more “bang for their buck,” in
terms of what they can fi t in each location, since they
don’t need to build out space for aisles and diff erent
departments for customers to peruse.
Manhattan landlords were concerned at fi rst
about leasing space to a brand-new company.
“Most New York landlords are pretty sophisticated,
and you always have to weigh risk with any deal
you’re looking at,” he said. “Gorillas, specifi cally, is
very well capitalized by strong, strong VC backers. I
think that helped to give landlords a lot of confi dence
in what these guys were doing.”
Some grocery stores are having the opposite
experience, the Brooklyn-based store owner said.
Finding a large and welcoming space is “crazy hard
to fi nd,” he said, and the spaces are pricey.
“Landlords would rather cut up a large space and
charge more rent than get an anchor tenant,” he said.
“Supermarkets are, margins are everything, right?
When you’re paying rent in the millions, it makes a
space look less attractive and appealing.”
The fi nal installment in “The Race to Deliver” will
examine labor relations between the companies behind
the grocery delivery apps and their workforce.
JOKR’s micro-warehouse -or “dark store” – in the Financial District.
Green Ivy Organic off ers a large variety of produce, fresh fl owers and grocery items.
/WWW.QNS.COM
