Almost a year after the city ruled to evict Citarella on 461 West 125th Street (just east of Amsterdam) for breach of contract, the store is still operating. As many might remember from last year's New York Times article, Citarella bought some property from the city in 1999 at below market rate with the promise of restoring the 125th Street building for retail. In addition, a second part of the deal would also include a dilapidated factory on the next block north. The 126th Street building would be one of the gourmet grocer's warehouses and was intended to provide jobs for the community.
As fate would have it, the retail portion came about quickly but the factory-to-warehouse conversion got sidetracked with talks of developing the property into condos when the housing market was at its peak. The government contracts usually require the developer to make things happen in a short amount of time, so ten years after the fact, Citarella technically got evicted by the city. So what's going on now? The retail space is still functioning so we are left wondering if further negotiations smoothed things out. The warehouse would have been a great addition to the industrial neck of West Harlem at 126th Street so maybe it's still a go? Anyone have any updates? Read more in last year's NY Times. LINK. Photo by Ulysses
I don't think “fate” had anything to do with it. More like corporate greed.
ReplyDeleteWell lets not get carried away with criticizing citarella. We don't know the details and I cannot imagine they have not been hit by economy as well like most other retailers in the city. They are a chain, but a new york chain and that is something. I also cannot imagine that the Harlem store is one of their highest grossing stores either. Considering its location, it is positive store to have in the neighborhood and they did restore the storefront.
ReplyDelete10 years and they did nothing with the warehouse that was the lynchpin for the deal?
ReplyDeleteOK, not corporate greed. Corporate sloth.
Evicting Citarella would be a stupid move on the citys part. Could care less about this warehouse. If it happens so be it at least they are not trying to make us Manhattan's parking lot like every other development project we get. It is a real store for people living in are community and Im grateful to have it on the days I am to lazy to walk to Fairway.
ReplyDeleteSanou's Mum,
ReplyDeleteAre you aware that the word "corporate" actually has a specific meaning? You seem to be pressing it into service to disparage any private sector activity you don't expressly approve of.
Anyway, your frustration should be with the city -- which is the party actually responsible for upholding the public interest. Of course, I'm not sure how well it would be served by evicting Citarella at this stage, so there's your catch-22.
Actually, we DO know the facts... they're in the judge's decision to evict them: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/citarella-is-evicted-from-its-harlem-store/?scp=1&sq=citarella&st=cse
ReplyDeleteCitarella bit off more than it could chew, agreeing to create a large warehouse, retail and other spaces that would create a certain number of jobs for the community. Instead, they purchased the property at a ridiculously low price (taxpayers' discount for promises to develop the property), then sat on it and didn't develop it because it became financially disadvantagous. But the only purpose for the City to sell the property at a discounted rate and include huge tax breaks is for the benefit of the community as a whole and the development of the property to do that. Citarella opened a retail store - about 1/5 of what they were supposed to do - and then hoped the City would call it good, but the community - OUR COMMUNITY - has lost out here. The City did the right thing, making sure that the corporation didn't take unfair advantage of it and trying to get the best development deal for the community. Is it sad that we're losing the store? Yes, but I'd rather see the store go and the whole area developed with the kinds of projects that we really need.
Plus, a contract is a contract. You don't negotiate a multi-million dollar deal and give up that much tax revenue and then let the breach of that deal slide because community members like to go to the fancy grocery store instead of the C-Town. That's just not enough to make up for the hundreds of thousands of dollars the City has lost through this deal.