Real e e-stores!
NYC retail vacancies doubled
Empty retail space in New York City has nearly doubled since the pandemic, according to data released Wednesday — as officials warned the troubling vacant storefronts aren’t going away.
Only 6% of Big Apple storefronts sat empty in 2019, compared with nearly 11.2% this year, statistics from the city Department of Finance show.
“These vacancy issues, I thought they would end when the pandemic ended, but it has not. It continues to be a problem,” said Council member Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), whose Upper West Side district has been hit hard by the scourge.
“They are creating havoc because there is homeless, garbage and the business next door hurts,” she added.
Zoning blamed
During a City Council Committee on Small Business meeting Wednesday, Calvin Brown, deputy commissioner for neighborhood development, blamed “archaic zoning barriers” for retail space going unused for years.
But council members said retail theft and picky landlords are to blame for the troubling trend, too.
The empty storefronts can lead to quality of life issues like garbage and graffiti as well as feelings of unease among residents, council member Oswald Feliz, chair of the Committee on Small Business, said.
“There’s a Walgreens one minute away from where I live that’s closing down due to retail theft,” Feliz (D-Bronx) said. “Anytime I speak to a small business, that is literally the very first issue they bring to us.”
A report released last month estimated that shoplifting cost New York state retailers $4.4 billion in 2022 — with the thefts spiking 64% in the Big Apple between June 2019 and June 2023.
So far this year, city retail thefts are up more than 6.5% — or to 14,910 — compared with the same time frame in 2023, according to the latest NYPD figures.
“We’ve got kids coming in on bicycles and just ransacking a store,” Council member Vicki Paladino (R-Queens) said. “We can’t sugarcoat the fact that there’s rampant crime in the city that is preventing people from opening small businesses in areas that used to be nice places to go to.”
She said some businesses told her they are “one step away from closing” due to a “shoplifting crisis.”
“We go into a CVS by me on the corner of the block of my office . . . . I went in to buy a tube of toothpaste. It, of course, was locked up as everything is now. But the store manager is keeping one tube of toothpaste behind the lock. It’s insanity,” Paladino said.
Theft issues
Tian Weinberg, chief of staff at the city Department of Small Business Services, said the mayor’s office takes retail theft “very seriously” and has been working with shopkeepers to connect them to local precincts to deal with thefts.
“Our approach has been to engage with the local precinct. They’re able to give walk-throughs to all these local businesses to access their security needs,” Weinberg said.
Brewer said picky landlords are exacerbating the problems, especially in Manhattan, where storefront vacancies are the highest.
She said owners of large retail buildings in her district told her they were waiting for chain stores to move in — with the space sitting empty in the meantime.
Brown said storefront businesses that are still thriving are juice bars, sports stores and coffee shops. Toy stores and party supply stores are on the decline, Brown said.
Reaching stores to help with improvements or grants before they close helps avoid adding to the city’s growing vacancy rates, Brown noted.
But Brewer said it’s not realistic to think grants can help stop the snowballing empty storefronts in her borough.
“In Manhattan, where rents are high and stakes are high, all these grants are not going to make a difference,” she said.