Shoe repair shop in N.D.G. that went up in flames can’t find affordable rent to relocate.
SHOE REPAIR SHOP destroyed by fire can’t afford to start anew in old location
“We were paying $2,000 and now everything is over $3,000. We still have to pay the rent at our house and eat.”
CORDONNERIE MONKLAND’S MONICA TURCOTTE
After a fire destroyed a popular shoe repair store in Notre-Damede-Grâce last spring, the owners thought they would be back in business within a few months.
The Cordonnerie Monkland had been in business on Monkland Ave. for 21 years and had a loyal and devoted following. In a spirit of remarkable generosity, their customers donated $30,000 to a grass roots campaign to help Monica Turcotte and Gilles St-Aubin get back on their feet. All that was left was to find a new rental property.
But that task would prove to be more difficult than the couple had imagined.
“We tried to find space on Monkland, but everything there is way too expensive for us — it is $3,000 (monthly) and up,” Turcotte told The Gazette this week.
While the cobblers spent many years repairing shoes and boots in their tiny 417-square-foot shop, rental costs on the popular commercial street were soaring.
The arrival of restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries, with their expansive outdoor terraces, has brought throngs of people to the street from west end neighbourhoods such as Westmount, Côte-St-Luc and Hampstead.
The street’s popularity has resulted in skyrocketing commercial rents between Girouard and Harvard Aves., making it more and more difficult for small independent retailers to survive.
Since the fire gutted the Cordonnerie Monkland last March, a longtime florist went out of business after being hit with a huge rental increase when her lease expired. Over the past few months, two local dry cleaners have downsized to reduce their rents.
“We were paying $2,000 and now everything is more than $3,000,” Turcotte said, explaining why they haven’t reopened on Monkland. “We still have to pay the rent at our house and eat.”
Since their store closed, the couple managed finan- cially with Turcotte babysitting her grandchildren while her partner works the odd shift at his family’s shoe repair shop on the South Shore.
The owners of two dry cleaning businesses had asked the couple to share their space so they could split the rent, but Turcotte said the two businesses are not compatible. “We create dust and they try to clean,” she said.
The couple’s former shop, which is now covered with graffiti, is being taken over by Lucille’s Oyster Dive. A kitchen fire last March destroyed the restaurant, the Cordonnerie Monkland and a jewelry store.
When Lucille’s reopens this spring, the kitchen will be in the same spot where Turcotte and St-Aubin had plied their trade for more than 20 years.
Eric Goodman, a real estate agent on Monkland Ave., agreed that high rents on the street are making it more difficult for mom-and-pop-style businesses to survive.
“In order to pay the kinds of rents on the street you have to have a thriving business where the profit margin for your product is high, such as coffee or restaurants with liquor,” Goodman said.
Many tenants have been facing huge rent increase once their leases are up because there is no rent control on commercial properties.
“If you have a relationship with your landlord, he might give you a small break,” Goodman said. “But someone who can get $50 a square foot is not going to give it to you at $35.”
But Turcotte said she and her partner have not thrown in the towel just yet.
Every Sunday morning, they drive up and down Sherbrooke St., Monkland Ave. and Côte St. Luc Road, jotting down phone numbers of rental properties.
Turcotte said she is hopeful that a rental property will soon become available on Sherbrooke St. West., where rents are much more affordable.
A member of the Sherbrooke St. West Merchants Association told her small businesses that don’t fare too well over Christmas sometimes close their doors in January or February.
Turcotte said the $30,000 donated by their customers is still in a bank account at the local Royal Bank. The money will be used to purchase countertops and other supplies that they will need when they reopen. Turcotte said she remembers the days when small businesses could survive on Monkland selling only one item — such as sausages or cheese.
She has accepted she will likely have to move away from the street to relaunch her business. Some of the merchants on the street have promised to put signs in their storefronts to let customers know when the Cordonnerie Monkland is back in business.
“We have been offered businesses in Nun’s Island and on St. Hubert St., but that is too far away,” she said. “We want to be in N.D.G. That is where the customers are.”