Brookfield Buys 7 Storefronts On Bleecker Street

WEST VILLAGE, NY — The real estate giant Brookfield bought seven Bleecker Street storefronts in an attempt to support the struggling retail scene on one of Manhattan's most famous streets.

Brookfield has acquired four properties with seven storefronts on Bleecker Street between West 10th and West 11th streets, the company announced this week. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the company's new real estate purchases. The company paid about $31.5 million for the Bleecker Street properties, according to the Journal.

Brookfield says it will use the vacant storefront shops as a testing ground of sort where it can allow online brands or "new retail concepts" to experiment with a brick-and-mortar sales environment for shorter periods of time, the Journal reported. The company also says that it plans to work with existing business on the street to develop a broader revitalization plan for the historic shopping area.

After a peak in real estate prices, dozens of storefront properties on Bleecker Street have been left vacant because the rent costs were simply too high for businesses to turn a profit. The pricey square footage — and some landlords' unwillingness to lower the price for willing tenants — has led to an issue known as "high-rent blight." Typically, a pattern of vacant stores is a sign of economic depression, but in prosperous lower Manhattan neighborhoods, vacant storefronts result from landlords content to leave their property vacant while waiting for a higher-paying tenant. The oft-repeated pattern — local business shuts down after landlord increase the rent — causes dozens of stores to sit empty in the years before a new retailer moves in.

A report from state senator Brad Hoylman's office last year found that 18 percent of storefronts on Bleecker Street were empty, a surprising change in trend for a shopping area that had previously attracted tourists, high-end retailers and independent shops alike.

"Bleecker Street is a cautionary tale of how high rents in the Village and Chelsea are pushing out longtime independent business," Hoylman said after he released the report last year. "We can't simply allow market forces to run roughshod over our community any longer."

Independent business owners and local leaders have struggled to develop effective solutions to keeping Manhattan real estate affordable for small businesses in recent years.

Image credit: Ciara McCarthy / Patch