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Store block on 9 Ave. latest victims of rising rents

By Rebecca Wolfson | Special to amNew York

April 10, 2008

The eastern side of Ninth Avenue between 17th and 18th streets, where Chelsea meets the Meatpacking District, has until now withstood the crosscurrents of change in the area.

It is a place where low-income residents still have homes and small stores prosper. But with a new owner, eight shops on the block -- among them a candy store, a barbershop, a liquor store and a dry cleaner are threatened by dramatically rising rents.

³Eventually, if we keep letting mom-and-pop stores close down we will be forced out of the community,² said Miguel Acevedo, an activist and a resident of Fulton Houses, a low-income apartment complex across the street from the block.

For Acevedo and about 1,500 residents at Fulton Houses, the endangered shops have been an affordable lifeblood of goods and services, and he is rallying the community to save them.

Fortunas, a development firm, paid $31.4 million for a large portion of the block that comprises eight stores and 64 apartments. The company wants to capitalize on its prime location by renovating, raising rents and attracting high-end retailers.

"[The property is] on the edge of two different markets," said Ben Haghani, director of acquisitions for Fortunas. "We hope to use the excitement of both areas (Chelsea and the Meatpacking District) and extend it to our property." Fortunas is already making plans for when the storeowners¹ leases are up. The shops will likely be replaced by high-end clothing stores, boutiques and restaurants, Haghani said.

Brian Rhee, the owner of Chelsea Liquors, may soon have to close his store after 26 years because he cannot pay the rent, which doubled from $2,400 to $5,000 a month. He said he has been given a notice of eviction, which he is fighting in court.

"Instead of talking to small mom-and-pop store owners they just throw them out. Is that their way of American justice?" Rhee asked.

The closing dates of most of the shops are staggered: The Chinese restaurant is leaving in September, Rhee said. The barbershop is gone in 18 months, according to an employee there. And the owner of the Ninth Avenue Gift Shop, Samaer Abdo Alrubayi, said the lease is up in 2013, but rising rents may force him out sooner.

Gloria Sukenick, a board member of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, a citywide tenant group, has joined Acevedo to launch a campaign focusing people¹s attention on the endangered block and its broader implications.

"Rents are so high that many of us can¹t even afford to shop here," she said. "We just think it¹s time to have some say in the way neighborhoods have been changing."