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WPCNR The White Plains Street. By John F. Bailey. September 28, 2003: A sports complex, children’s museum and street level retail development “sneak-previewed” to the Common Council Thursday evening flabbergasted the merchants presently doing brisk business out of their Martine Avenue and Mamaroneck Avenue locations.
WPCNR has learned Minskoff-Grant Realty & Management Corporation, landlord of roughly half the satellite outlets fronting on Martine Avenue and Court Street is offering 10-year leases on their Court Street frontage to their present tenants fronting on Martine Avenue. This makes it unclear whether the Silverman project will actually replace the entire city block with a one-piece seamless building on the Court, Martine and Mamaroneck Avenue as reported.
FIRST TIME WE KNEW: Irene Seitz, left and Bishop Purvis of the northeast comic collector’s headquarters, M & I Comic Book Heaven, hold up the news story that ruined their day Friday. Ms. Seitz has not had the opportunity to talk with her landlord yet, Minskoff Grant Realty & Management Corporation of Manhattan, about her lease at 25 Court Street, but understands from fellow owners that Minskoff-Grant is offering 10 year leases on locations in their portion of the Court Street side. Purvis said Sunday they are taking a wait and see stance. Photo by WPCNR News.
SON OF CITY CENTER, “Downtown Crossing” is a 4-story sports complex, a twin in design look to the City Center across the street. It would include an indoor sports facility on the top two floors, a children’s museum and upscale retail on the street level. It was pitched as a family oriented attraction by Silverman Realty Group which owns the locations on the Mamaroneck side of the block (shown here). Leon Silverman presented designs to the Common Council Thursday evening.
Photo by WPCNR NEWS
Owners of The Bagel Emporium, Jenkris Hardware (formerly Graessle Hardware), OK Jewelry, White Plains Leather, M and I Comic Heaven also told the CitizeNetReporter the Journal News article was the first time they had heard of Mr. Silverman’s plan.
The article contained a photograph of Mayor Joseph Delfino viewing plans of the project with its architect in front of the Mamaroneck Avenue location in a photo inexplicably taken in broad daylight by a Journal News photographer, (a “photo op” on the street to which WPCNR was not made aware of). The photo appeared to have been staged before the Common Council viewed the project Thursday evening in a 6 PM work session. The Work Session was first publicized at 10:45 A.M. Thursday morning by a city hall e-mail.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BLOCK: Brooklyn’s Famous Sub Shop is being created at the former “CD Warehouse location. The new tenant, Dan Weisse said he was told by Minskoff-Grant, they would not be part of the new Downtown Crossing.
Photo by WPCNR News
New Tenant signed on at Court Street Unaware of “Downtown Crossing”
Dan Weisse, owner of the Brooklyn’s Famous Sub Shop which hopes to locate two doors down from the Bagel Emporium, told WPCNR Saturday he had heard rumors of a project, but had signed a 10-year lease with Minskoff-Grant Realty & Management Corporation anyway, one store away from The Bagel Emporium (formerly that art deco mini-palace, The White House).
Weisse who runs the original Brooklyn’s Famous Sub Shop (in Brooklyn, USA), said it is his understanding from Minskoff-Grant that the firm would continue to operate their properties on Court Street and did not plan to sell them. The establishments now on Court Street include M & I Comic Book Heaven, Chillemi Shoe Repair plus two other vacant sites, (plus the former Woolworth’s space which Silverman Realty Group owns).
1950S Malt Shop Revival, Now being renovated on Court Street
Photo by WPCNR News
Weisse said he had been told that the former Woolworth’s entrance opening on Court, midway on the Court Street. would be where parking entry would be for the Silverman project. He expressed puzzlement that major construction would be taking place, in between at least 3 operating establishments, his, the comic book store, and Chillemi Shoe Repair and two other store fronts he thought were being shopped by Minskoff-Grant.
Secret Identity
Irene Seitz, owner of M & I Comic Book Heaven said, in her conversations with other owners since the “sneak preview” was presented Friday, she understood that Minskoff-Grant was signing Jenkris Hardware and a beauty store to 10 year leases on the Court Street side, and was planning to continue to operate the Court Street block..
It could not be determined by WPCNR if the Bagel Emporium was going to remain and how far the Silverman project façade was going to extend along Martine Avenue. Initial presentation of the project as reported in the Journal News, implied the project would take the entire square block except for the Hudson Valley Bank and Payless Shoe Store.
MEANWHILE ON THE MARTINE AVENUE SIDE: The owner of Jenkris Hardware (green sign) confirmed they were negotiating a new longterm lease with Minskoff-Grant to move to a Court Street side location. City Center can be seen looming in the background.
Photo by WPCNR News
Jenkris Hardware (located on Martine Avenue) is one of those Martine Avenue properties Minskoff-Grant is offering long term leases. The owner manning the counter Saturday confirmed to me that the article on the project was the first they had learned about the Silverman Realty project. He said that he was negotiating with Minskoff-Grant on a new lease on the Court Street side.
Minskoff-Grant’s rental agent represented to M & I Comic Book Heaven that nothing was going to change with their Court Street location weeks before this when she had asked about it. Ms. Seitz felt better Saturday afternoon that M & I Comic Book Heaven was not going to have to move, when she heard about the lease negotiations from other owners.
DRAWING COLLECTORS FROM ALL OVER THE NORTHEAST: M & I Comic Book Heaven, next to Chillemi Shoe Repair on Court and Hudson Valley Bank at extreme left. The location draws collectors from up and down the eastern seaboard for its extensive collections of memorabilia, comics, and fantasy products. It has been a tenant at the location for eight years.
Photo by WPCNR News
This was a far cry from Ms. Seitz concern on Friday afternoon, when she and Bishop Purvis were pouring over their current lease. They were worrying that an eminent domain clause in their current lease would be the legal device that would give Minskoff-Grant the ability to turn them out at will, which would be legal if the city of White Plains took the premises through eminent domain for a project.
16 Operating Businesses on the Block Affected. Two More Unaffected.
By WPCNR observation, there are 16 operating businesses fronting on the Mamaroneck Avenue, Martine Avenue and Court Street block, and 4 untenanted storefronts (one of those was recently leased from Minskoff-Grant by Mr. Weisse the Broolyn’s Famous Sub Shop proprietor). When WPCNR did a spot check of the businesses most were doing good business at mid-Friday afternoon. Many have been there a long period of time.
The businesses on Mamaroneck Avenue affected are: Fleetwood Bank, Foot Locker, White Plains Leather, Sneaker Outlet, Gatsby’s (the last independent men’s haberdashery in the city at its Mamaroneck and Martine location for approximately a dozen years and also operates out of The Galleria). The Woolworth space and a former diner space are vacant.
The establishments on Martine are O.K. Jewelry, Coney Island (diner), A Nails Salon, Anthony’s Convenience Store, Fashion Town (a clothier) Jenknis Hardware, Crown Beauty Supply, Freshies, and the Bagel Emporium. There is one vacant storefront on the Martine side.
Five Business Owners Say It’s News to Them.
WPCNR interviewed five business owners who said the project announcement took them by surprise. Irene Seitz and Bishop Purvis (of White Plains) of M & I Comic Book Heaven said so. A Bagel Emporium manager said their owner told her he was unaware of the Silverman Realty Group plans until the news story appeared. So did the owner of Jenknis hardware store, the owner of OK Jewelry (a Silverman tenant), and the owner of White Plains Leather (a Silverman tenant) on the Mamaroneck Avenue side.
Minskoff-Grant Realty & Management Corporation and Silverman Realty Group could not be contacted over the weekend to clarify the extent of the project and how the new lessors on Court Street being offered the multi-year leases would be integrated into the Silverman 4-story edifice, or whether the façade of the project would proceed from corner to corner from the corner of Court and Martine to Mamaroneck and down past Fleetbank.
BID to help?
WPCNR has a query into the Downtown Business Improvement District (the BID) as to whether the BID will consider organizing an effort to facilitate relocation of the dozen or possible businesses that will need new homes in town, should the project be eventually approved by the Common Council.
Based on previous Common Council approval speeds, the project could be approved within 7 to 8 months, and constructed within two years, opening in 2006, though a detailed application has not been submitted.
WHERE’S A SUPERHERO WHEN YOU NEED ONE? M & I Comic Book Heaven and the rest of the 16 businesses on the Court-Martine-Mamaroneck Block do not know where they stand in the Downtown Crossing plans.
Photo by WPCNR News
