Is it good or bad for Tarrytown?
Andrea Kott
When Paddy Fisher and her husband were house hunting 11 years ago, the variety and uniqueness of businesses on Main Street drew them to Tarrytown. During the past three years, however, Fischer said they have watched these businesses gradually dwindle. “Several antique stores, gone or in much smaller quarters,” she said. “Main Street Café, gone. Alma Snape Florists, gone. The office supply store, gone. And there are others on Main Street and elsewhere in Tarrytown that have disappeared.”
Anyone who has lived or worked on Main Street for the last 10 years or more has witnessed dramatic and continuous change, much of it positive. Rundown buildings are renovated. Café tables and chairs border sidewalks. Flowers boxes adorn shop windows. There is a steady pulse of people coming to shop, eat, hear live music or stroll and enjoy the village.
But such change, however beneficial, exacts a price. Stores that sold everyday necessities have given way to specialty shops. Parking is scarce. And rising rents have forced some businesses to leave. Some fear that left unchecked, the changes on Main Street will threaten the businesses that have made Tarrytown what it is.
When Jackie Golabek (in front of her store in photo by S. Stowe) opened Whimsies Incognito 20 years ago, few ventured below Washington on Main Street, where the store has been since 1993, after spending its first five years in a 500-square-foot, $875/month space at the top of Main. “If I hadn’t started at the top of the street, I don’t think I would have made it,” said Golabek, who wanted optimal visibility.
Today she pays $2,376/month for her 1300-square-foot store, which she might have to close in February, as the building might be for sale. “I don’t want to go out of business,” said Golabek, who cannot afford to buy the building. “I don’t want to find another town.”
Change is nothing new to Chris Brazil and Michael Farley, who opened their antique store, Michael Christopher, in a $385/month space that is now Rose Nails. When they moved to Main Street 24 years ago, it was “empty, gray and depressing” and “rent was dirt cheap,” Brazil said. They recently moved into their third location, because the rent in their last one increased 150 percent, he said.
Meanwhile, Hassan Jarane, owner of Mint, a unique specialty food store on Main Street, said his rent — currently $3,500/month — has increased by 50 percent since he opened six years ago.
“Whenever you have a depressed area, antique dealers will show up, because the rent is cheap,” Brazil said. “When antique centers open, restaurants come.” Eventually, other businesses follow, targeting the customers who can afford antiques and high-end restaurants.
Many merchants and building owners credit the antique stores for turning Main Street around, attracting shoppers with more disposable income and giving the street its character. “The antique stores keep the chain stores out,” Alicia Kelligrew, co-owner of Coffee Labs, said. Many also credit the Music Hall, which often draws sell-out crowds to its shows.
But locals, like Fisher, miss stores that sell basics, like computer paper, housewares and books. “Maybe, there’s not enough interest to sustain any of these businesses,” she said.
Louise Lambert, a retired antiques dealer, said it is difficult to support retail on Main Street. “You can’t come in anymore and just open any business,” she said, citing Deggie New Age Shop and Cafe that lasted less than one year. Eleanor Ross, co-owner of Tarrytown Real Estate, said the village can no longer support army/navy, shoe and other stores that were here when she was growing up in Tarrytown. “People go to malls now,” Ross said.
What they go to Main Street for is activity, Joanne Murray, president of the Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Chamber of Commerce said. “Downtowns are a social experience. That’s what people want,” Murray said. “They can shop on the Internet.”
Indeed, Internet shopping has taken a bite out of business everywhere, even some antique shops. Increasing unemployment and gas prices and the lowest consumer confidence in 28 years hasn’t helped; nor has the soaring cost of real estate and rents. In the mid-1980s, buildings in Tarrytown sold for a fraction of the $1 million or more they cost today, Brazil said. Back then, buyers could make enough of a down payment to get a manageable mortgage, while many now can afford only 5 or 10 percent, taking home huge mortgage and property tax bills, he said.
Some merchants, like Ted Howell, owner of Heritage Frame, call landlords greedy. “There’s nothing we can do about [the high cost of renting] … unless the landlords reign in their greed,” Howell said.
But rising rents are not about greed, Ross said. They are about landlords trying to meet the rising cost of taxes, fuel, mortgage payments, insurance and maintenance. “Think of what you have to make just to pay the taxes,” Ross said. Ross said that rents, which reflect current market value, seem high because they used to be so cheap.
Since owning real estate has traditionally made more financial sense than renting, some merchants have purchased their buildings. However, buildings on Main Street have gotten so expensive that most people buying them are using them, Ross said. “No one is buying as an investment. The prices are too high,” she said.
Gregg Goldberg, who bought the Goldberg’s Hardware building from his father two years ago, lives in one of its four units and rents out the other three. Although he has “a huge note” to pay every month, Goldberg has resisted raising his tenants’ rent. “You have to be prepared when you raise the rent that you’ll lose a tenant,” he said, or that a tenant will skip the rent altogether.
Not everyone finds the rents on Main Street out of line. David Starkey, co-owner with Theresa McCarthy of the yet-to-be-opened Sweet Grass Grill, where the Main Street Café was located, is paying $4,600/month for their approximately 1200-square-foot space as well as additional money to renovate it. “It’s a good investment,” Starkey said. Donna Salamone, owner of Hair on the Hudson, who said her rent is comparable to Starkey’s, said, “Rents are not atrocious compared to other towns.”
And, despite complaints about unaffordable rents, many merchants say it is important to have higher end stores on the block, largely to avoid becoming like Beekman Avenue in Sleepy Hollow, which, they say, lacks the businesses needed to attract people with money to spend.
More parking is equally important, Goldberg said, echoing merchants’ frustration with losing potential customers who can’t find a spot.
Still, additional parking is not likely to stem the tides of change on Main Street, which dismay some residents, like Helene Rubinstein, who moved to Tarrytown for “quintessential small-town stores” like Whimsies. “I’ve only lived in Tarrytown for 2 ½ years … and I’ve seen changes already that sadden me,” Rubinstein said. “I hope what I moved here for doesn’t go away completely.”
Goldberg isn’t worried. “The town is going in the right direction,” he said. “You’re never going to make everybody happy.”
Andrea Kott is associate editor of The Hudson Independent.
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