Verco Properties On Urban Redevelopment

Delis, bodegas, and corner stores are part of the fabric of any good neighborhood. Jane Jacobs in her masterwork The Death and Life of Great American Cities describes the necessity of stores like the corner deli to make neighborhoods safe and vibrant. They are part of what she called the “ballet of the good city sidewalk” and they provide “eyes on the street” to protect the neighborhood, its residents, and its visitors. Reciprocally the residents provide eyes on the street for the shopkeepers. Circles of trust develop.

More Jane Jacobs, Less Marc Jacobs

In their introduction to the collected short works of Jane Jacobs entitled Vital Little Plans, editors Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring reflect on a billboard on a side street in modern-day Greenwich Village blaring “More Jane Jacobs, Less Marc Jacobs”. Popular NYC neighborhoods have become overrun with high-end retailers, national chains, big box stores, and ubiquitous international franchises.

In the 1960s, Jane Jacobs famously fought Robert Moses to prevent a superhighway from cutting through her Greenwich Village neighborhood. While Moses advocated for superhighways to move cars into and out of the City quickly, Jacobs said “downtown is for the people”.

Jacobs railed against the mantra of mid-century planners creating “towers in the park” removed from the hustle and bustle of commercial activity. Jacobs countered with talk about the importance of places like Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, the East Village and Yorkville to the diversity of New York City. Places with the apartments above the stores. They were incubators of opportunity.

Everything that made Jane Jacobs’ New York not only special and vital, but also diverse and aspirational is being strangled out. The ladders of opportunity for the struggling working class and new immigrants that come from the creation of small, family-owned "mom and pop" businesses are being replaced by the bundling and packaging of small businesses by corporate America into franchises and national retailers, bought and sold by hedge funds and private equity firms, and churned into IPOs to be monetized on Wall Street.

Protecting “Mom and Pop” stores

As areas like the Lower East Side and the Bowery have become increasingly popular as “live, work, and play” destinations for millenials, empty-nesters and foreign visitors, rents have increased for commercial space. Faced with higher rents, some of these “mom and pop” businesses have had to close. Some of the building owners in these popular neighborhoods have decided to leave their storefronts vacant until the next wave of gentrification reaches them and brings the national retailers.

Recognizing this alarming trend, Mayor Bill DiBlasio has called for a vacancy tax on building owners who leave their storefronts vacant for extended periods.

Bucking the Trend

Verco Properties is one owner that is bucking the trend on “mom and pop” displacement. Started by Giovanni Verni, an immigrant from Bari, Italy, Verco Properties focuses on smaller properties with “mom and pop” businesses on the first floor like a deli, a cleaners or a local neighborhood restaurant with apartments upstairs for middle-class New Yorkers, those just starting their careers in the big city, and new arrivals to America. Giovanni, came to America through Ellis Island in 1919 and dug ditches, laid railroad ties, and delivered ice to walk-up apartment buildings as he made his way in America. Eventually he went into the deli business and bought a building in Yorkville near Gracie Mansion where he ran his deli on the first floor and lived in an apartment above the deli with his family.

Verco Properties has not forgotten its roots. In addition to the building with the family deli on the corner in Yorkville, Verco Properties has buildings in the East Village, Gramercy Park, Chelsea and Soho and now owns and manages about 30 buildings in New York City.

The legacy of the “Mom and Pop” store continues

After Giovanni Verni, the deli on the corner was owned by a string of other families - first two Jewish families, then an Italian butcher who was there until last year. When the Italian butcher retired Verco Properties was approached by a Dunkin Donuts franchisee to take over the location. We resisted. We felt that the location had always been a “mom and pop” store run by a family aspiring to the American Dream. We felt that tradition should continue.

We hung up a “Store for Rent” sign to see who would apply. Besides other franchises, we got applications from a family from Yemen that had another deli in the East Village and a family from Pakistan that had another deli on the Upper West Side. We did our due diligence. The family from Yemen also has a cousin who already had a deli in a Verco building on the corner of 13th Street and First Avenue. We chose the family from Yemen. The tradition of a family building their American Dream with a deli on the corner - this time by a family from an Arab nation. It is somewhat fitting given the times we live in.

Small business is the backbone of American business. “Mom and Pop” stores are the gateway to the American Dream for immigrants to this country. The bottom line is that the billboard was right - we need “More Jane Jacobs, Less Marc Jacobs”.