NEW YORK CITY-As residential growth continues to boom in the city’s outer-boroughs, urban retail owner/manager Crown Acquisitions is putting its chips on Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. The company has invested $20 million in retail assets in Greenpoint, Corona and Eltingville—and has already leased them up.
“Many people underestimate the strength of the outer-boroughs,” says Isaac Chera, president of Crown Acquisitions. He tells GlobeSt.com that the firm looks for strong retail streets in various neighborhoods with heavy pedestrian traffic, easy transportation access and strong demographics.
“It really has to be impressive,” he says. “We look for the building that has the greatest visibility or whether it is near a subway or bus stop. It has to have good frontage and have the ability to really stand out.”
The sites, located at 765 Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint, 37-80 Junction Blvd. in Corona and 3881 Richmond Ave. in Eltingville, are now leased to high-credit quality banks and pharmacies. At the 10,000-square-foot, two-story 765 Manhattan Ave., Crown purchased the property partially vacant and entered into a new lease with TD Bank. At 37-80 Junction Blvd., a 12,000-square-foot building, the company purchased the vacant building and subsequently leased it to Duane Reade. Lastly, the property at 3881 Richmond Ave. was a Blockbuster video store that is being combined with a corner lot to accommodate to Bank of America.
All the locations are near transit or major highways, Chera says. The 765 Manhattan Ave. site is near the Nassau Ave. G train, while the Queens and Staten Island sites are in close proximity to the Long Island Expressway and the Korean War Veterans Parkway, respectively.
The transactions, which closed in the last 30 days of 2011, are a sign of things to come in 2012. “We are doing this on a programmatic basis, so we are continuously out there doing deals like this,” he says.
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