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For the first time in years the BID selected a new vendor to
string the holiday lights over W.
181st Street.
Walk down W. 181st Street and it might seem like business as usual, but look closely and you’ll notice changes that could signal a renaissance for the heart of Washington Heights.
It starts with the holiday lights twinkling overhead. They have been an annual tradition for as long as anyone can remember, but this year you’ll notice that they are a slightly different design than before.
It’s a small change, but one that underscores the large plans that are being put in place by the rejuvenated Washington Heights Business Improvement District (BID). The lights are the first manifestation of the changes the BID is planning, hiring a new vendor for the first time in years.
The biggest recent change is on the third floor of a rickety walk up on St. Nicholas Avenue. That is the BID office where Angelina Ramirez was brought onboard over the summer after years of lackadaisical leadership by the former executive director George Sanchez. The BID’s level of uncleanliness and general stagnation gave a black eye to the city’s Department of Small Business Services, which oversees the 64 BIDs in the five boroughs.
Sanchez was finally pushed out over the summer and the board chair, who owns the building where the BID office is housed, also left.
The BID serves 255 commercial storefronts in a strip that runs for four blocks along W. 181st Street from Audubon to Ft. Washington Avenues, as well as smaller strips of St. Nicholas Avenue and Broadway. The BID is tasked with supplementary sanitation services and working with city agencies, elected officials and business and property owners to enhance the commercial district.
Ramirez, who cut her teeth in client management at Pepsi and American Express before entering the nonprofit sector, has spent her two months in the position retrenching. Her office walls are covered in the ghostly outlines of the plaques and photographs that had hung for years but have since been removed.
Earlier this month the BID board of directors approved a slate of recommendations that will hopefully refit the organization so it can begin addressing W. 181st Street’s most pressing issues.
New board members were voted in, including Jay Hirschhorn of Jay’s Big Gym. Elba Pichardo, a vice president and branch manager at the area Banco Popular, was elected chair.
The board also decided to seek new, more professional office space rather than the ramshackle walk up that has served as headquarters. Where the BID had overseen its own sanitation crew, the work will now be outsourced, providing seven-day-a-week service. About 20 storefronts have also had graffiti removed. At the corner of W. 181st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue one newsstand was removed and another upgraded.
A new logo has been selected as part of a marketing plan that Ramirez wants to put into place. It includes a revamped Web site that provides current information.
All of these accomplishments are ancillary to the BID’s bottom line – helping merchants improve their bottom lines – but they are all necessary intermediary steps.
What Ramirez knows must be done is to reach out to merchants and residents to find out what their needs are.
“We need to better understand who they are and where they want to go,” said Ramirez. “I have ideas but they are in a vacuum. I don’t want to create programs for the sake of creating programs.
“Just because I come from corporate America I don’t want to be arrogant and say I know what the businesses need,” she added.
Perhaps the biggest issue that the BID will tackle in the new year is the proliferation of street vendors, both legal and illegal, in the district. Ramirez said that she will spend the next several months creating an “all encompassing plan” to deal with the 30 to 40 regular vendors.
But Ramirez learned at a recent meeting of BID executive directors that rampant street vending is a problem throughout the city. With new Deputy Mayor for Operations Stephen Goldsmith as the invited guest, the executive directors pressed him to push for new legislation to govern vending.
City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez has vowed that the number of street vendors will be reduced, but not before providing them with options.
While a proliferation of street vendors clogs sidewalks, making the BID district a less desirable place to shop some argue, street congestion is also a deterrent for some shoppers.
But progress may also be happening on the transportation front as well.
Officials from the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) say that they will have a final recommendation for increasing the flow of traffic on W. 181st Street by next March.
Traffic studies have been a long time coming for the congested half-mile long stretch, but DOT released three options last month that would drastically change traffic patterns.
All three options include “restricted metered parking” to limit commercial use from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and allow public parking at meters at other times.
Under the first option W. 181st Street would remain open to two-way traffic, but would get dedicated left hand turn lanes. The second option would create a bus mall on the south side of the street with buses running in both directions and restrict westbound traffic to the north side of the street. Eastbound traffic would be eliminated. The third option converts W. 181st Street to a one-way, westbound street, with dedicated car, bus lane and bike lanes.
In community meetings and online surveys, none of the solutions alone have won the public’s favor, but they signal progress is being made in addressing the problem.
Ramirez said that during her informal discussions with merchants they said that between 60 and 70 percent of their clientele comes from outside the area, meaning that any steps to improve transportation should improve business.
Few challenges loom as large as filling the empty storefronts that pockmark the commercial strip.
Porta Bella, with its blazing yellow “Going out of business” signage, is the highest profile change. The menswear store that sold everything from tuxedoes to casual shirts announced that it would close last month and began offering deep discounts on all its items. One of 14 of stores in the metropolitan area, the W. 181st Street Porta Bella between Wadsworth and St. Nicholas Avenues had been open for 10 years. According to sources, it’s another victim of escalating rents. A company spokesperson said the branch was still considering relocating elsewhere in the area.
Assuming Porta Bella closes, the final day has not been announced, that block will be particularly vacant due to the loss of Jennifer Convertibles several months ago. (That space was temporarily taken over by Ricky’s Costume Superstore last month when lines stretched out the door in the days leading up to Halloween.)
Further west, 719 W. 181st St., at the corner of Bennett Avenue, has several commercial spaces that are being represented by Navahjo Stoller, a broker with Navi Times.
He is currently trying to lease four retail spaces from 650 to 14,000 square feet. The two ground floor spaces include the former Joseph’s Shoes store; the upstairs spaces are best suited for offices.
Part of Stoller’s marketing strategy has included querying members of the Parentandme listserv to find out what is most needed in the area.
His Oct. 21 post “Four unique spaces centrally located in Hudson Heights. (ANY IDEAS?)” generated dozens of replies within a few days asking for performance space, a FedEx/Kinkos, a bakery and toy store. Besides calls for a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods Market, dismissed because there isn’t enough space, the most common request he received was for a bookstore and café. He has reached out to several to see if there is any interest.
“I feel like it’s in my benefit to work with the community and the community’s benefit to have people working for it – it feeds both ways,” said Stoller, an area resident who has a child at P.S. 187. “Getting the community excited was important. They are your eyes and ears.”
The upstairs office space, he believes, would be ideal for an architect, photographer or other artist who wants to work in the neighborhood, or for medical offices. The space is leasing for $22 to $24 a square foot. The landlord is looking for $50 to $88 a square foot for the ground floor spaces.
“We need a business that is going to be able to survive,” he said. “The landlords are aware of that. They want someone who will be there in 10 to 15 years.” They also don’t want to bring in competition for one of their existing tenants, which include a locksmith, laundromat, bike shop, pharmacy and salon.
On the far west end of W. 181st Street a couple of other prominent vacancies have caught the attention of the proprietors of several night spots in the city.
The owners of An Beal Bocht Café in Rivedale and Arlene’s Grocery on the Lower East Side hope to open a new Irish pub at the now closed Agave Azul (formerly Hispaniola) at the corner of Pinehurst Avenue. It would be called The Dark Horse and, as described by owner Tiornagh Harmon, would have live music, poetry and other types of artsy entertainment. There would be no TV, juke box, pool table or dart board, she said.
While Community Board 12 had originally not recommended a liquor license for the establishment, it is reconsidering the application. It’s the kind of new eatery driven by entertainment and culture that has helped push the renaissance of Dyckman Street in recent years. It’s also increased quality of life issues as residential concerns and commercial pursuits have been caught in crossfire. These issues are not lost those who are closely following the changes on W. 181st Street.
Clearly there is a lot of work to be done, lots of opportunities, but also lots of risk and bureaucracy.
The BID’s Ramirez perhaps has the best attitude going forward, aware of the difficulties, but “still having fun.”
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