West 8th Street's retail woes - Bob Marley - Music Stars

West Eighth Street sank gradually into seediness, and revivifying efforts blister its survivors

Empty storefronts dominate West Eighth Street, where the number of shoe shops continues to dwindle.

Shop owners who still linger on the stretch of Eighth Street, once called the city's shoe capital, said the September 11 attacks ravaged the shopping district, which remains littered with empty storefronts. Since the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, 24 of 54 shoe stores have closed, a devastating percentage.

Today, 16 storefronts remain empty, giving the street a ghostly look and turning off potential new retailers. Other shops sport "Going Out of Business" and "70 Percent Off" signs. It's reeling, although shop owners, landlords and brokers say it's much more than a five-year terror hangover that's led to the area's decline.

The Eighth Street strip is an example of how market economics and changing fashion tastes converge and can upend a single street that once depended on shoppers from Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens.
Rising rents played a role in the long march of Eight Street to decline -- rates doubled at some stores, putting veteran shopkeepers out of business. Some of the shuttered spaces have stayed vacant as long as two years while their owners wait for the area to come back, and the visual effect does little to dispel an aura of decay.

One shop owner, who is closing his shoe store after 20 years and declined to identify himself, said rent hikes were a citywide phenomenon, but also that "the easy money" landlords were seeking would cause the whole street to collapse.
"I feel bad, because this store was like home," he said, as boxes were hauled out of his storefront for the last time.
The rents are rising from an average of $50 a square foot per year to $80, $120 and $150, but are still way below the standard $200 to $350 per-square-foot prices in other parts of the Village and Soho, said Aaron Gavios, executive vice president at Square Foot Realty.

His firm recently tried to rent out 21, 23 and 25 West Eighth Street, two of which have 1,500-square-foot spaces -- large for the street. But the landlord passed on the one good offer from Quizno's, a fast food franchise.
"The retailers walk the block, and they see all these vacant stores, and they think the plague hit it," said Howard Aaron, president of Square Foot.

Other brokers passed on the shared listings and said the street was "finished," he noted.
A building superintendent for several properties on the block said drug dealers and panhandlers parked in front of Gray's Papaya on the corner of Sixth Avenue often urinated in store doorways, and harassed pedestrians, which adds to the seedy atmosphere.
He also pointed to a row of street vendors selling used magazines and incense in front of the old, unoccupied Sam Goody on Sixth Avenue.

"Who wants," Aaron said, "to come here when it's like that?"
Alliance, shop owners at odds
Some shop owners point part of the blame at the direction their Business Improvement District, the Village Alliance, is taking.
One shoe store owner, who also requested anonymity for fear of being blackballed among brokers and by the Village Alliance, said he's been in the same location for more than 50 years, attracting customers from all over the world.

"This was the capital of the world for shoes," he said. He said Honi Klein, the director of the BID, wants to steer the street away from shoe retailing.
Another shoe store manager at 55 West Eighth Street agreed: "The more shoe stores you have on Eighth Street, the more business you are going to have," he said, calling Klein's strategy "a mistake.

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But some people involved in the area said they were glad to see the old retailers go. Critics said shoe retailers lack energy and a broad range of merchandise, and attracted low income, discount-seeking clientele, which they said contributed to the area's problems.
Klein said most of the old customers looking for shoes have moved on, especially to the retail area on 14th Street, where they shop at discounter DSW and other hot retailers.

"The bottom line is that 14 new shoes stores between 16th Street and University [Place] have sprung up over the past seven years," said Klein.
"That's not the same customer and it's never been the same customer," countered the manager at Studio 55, which sells brands like Clarks, Dr. Martens, Ecco, Timberland, Dansko and Frye.

His company has three stores on the street that he said are thriving, with both branded and private label goods, despite rising rents.
Nevertheless, Klein has moved forward with the strategy of catering to area residents, adding restaurants and making it a hub for ethnic dining options.

Keywords: Eighth Street, Square Foot, West Eighth Street, West Eighth, Village Alliance, Sixth Avenue

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