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Independent real estate agent Navahjo Stoller passed out
fliers in the neighborhood and made a YouTube tour of the space to attract a
tenant. It worked. A Wadsworth
Avenue businessman decided to open a laundromat in
the space.
The old Gruenbaum’s Bakery storefront at 725 W. 181st St., vacant since 2006, has been rented by a laundromat. Instead of warm cookies and bread, the smell of soap suds will soon waft through the air.
The sad sight of the closed bakery has been held up as an example of how small business owners are suffering and how landlords choose to keep their storefronts vacant in hopes of landing a big ticket tenant.
Not so with this property said Navahjo Stoller, the real estate agent who brokered the deal.
“[The landlords] really care about the building and they really care about the neighborhood. That’s why it stayed vacant for so long,” he said.
Instead of filling the space with the type of business that already exists along the busy commercial corridor, the owners held out for something new, he added. “They wouldn’t consider a salon because they have a salon,” Stoller said. They wanted someone who works well with other tenants, he said.
Stoller declined to give the name of the new tenant, the building owners and the negotiated rent. But on his Web site the 2,400-square-foot property was listed renting for $8,500 per month.
The laundromat is simply called “Laundromat” and will be the third on W. 181st Street west of Broadway and the fifth in the vicinity. Once workers are done installing nearly two dozen washers and about half as many driers it will be the biggest one in the neighborhood, with the most amenities. Aside from all new machines and a dry cleaning service, Stoller said the owner, who has another location on Wadsworth Avenue, plans on making wireless Internet available as well as a couple of computers for patrons to use.
A new laundromat was what Stoller, an area resident, heard was needed during open houses held in the space.
He also quizzed parents at his daughter’s school, P.S. 187.
“I often discuss with the parents what they feel is needed for the neighborhood,” he said.
“Ultimately they’re the ones who will be shopping there.”
As far as tenants, Stoller found his a little differently.
“I feel a lot of brokers just list the space on the Internet and expect the tenants to come to them,” Stoller said. “I find the business I think will fit well there.”
Stoller put a video tour of the space on YouTube and his Web site, www.navitimes.com, and hit the streets of Northern Manhattan handing out fliers about the old Gruenbaum’s space.
“This is a great way to show the space on their time,” Stoller said of the YouTube video. The space, like the video for the Gruenbaum’s location, was not gussied up.
“I just want to deliver the information to the potential tenant,” he said.
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