In the hamlet of Hartsdale, business partners Brad Nagy and Angelo Viscoso weighed their risk against recent local history before deciding to sink several hundred thousand dollars into a neighborhood pizzeria they”™ll open this month.
“We”™re concerned about the flood,” said Nagy last week, while carpentry and electrical crews hustled to complete renovations to the partners”™ 2,500-square-foot Frankie and Fanucci”™s Wood Oven Pizzeria at 202 E. Hartsdale Ave.
It has been two years since a two-day mid-April nor”™easter brought flooding that inflicted disastrous damage and economic losses on homes and businesses throughout Westchester County and the region. One of the county”™s hardest-hit business districts was on East Hartsdale Avenue in the town of Greenburgh, the same gently curving block of storefronts where Nagy and partner Angelo Viscoso busily prepare to open their third restaurant in the metropolitan area and first in Westchester.
They fill a vacancy left by Lia”™s, an upscale Italian eatery owned by chef Craig Cupani and his wife, Imre, that closed Feb. 1, a little more than four years after the Manhattan-trained chef made his suburban debut in the hamlet. Lia”™s was one of 13 businesses on the retail block across from the Hartsdale Metro-North Railroad station that suffered heavy losses when floodwater from a Bronx River tributary and storm runoff from the densely built residential and commercial area filled their cellars. The flood ruined equipment, inventories, floors and walls and electrical systems and forced businesses to close for several weeks to several months.
Though a few businesses on the block did not reopen, retail space on both sides of East Hartsdale Avenue is fully occupied two years after the disaster. Yet some business owners that did reopen said their sales and customer numbers still have not recovered from the flood. The recession has only added to their collective business headache.
“We just made a calculated business decision,” said Nagy, who read a town engineering report on causes of the flooding and recommended improvements to the town”™s storm-drainage infrastructure before the partners took the plunge and signed a lease. “They call it a 100-year flood. We”™re hoping the town steps up and does the construction work necessary to finish it,” he said.
That does not seem likely. Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner last week said major flood relief construction at Hartsdale would cost more than $20 million. “That would be prohibitive,” he said.
The town has not participated in Westchester County”™s flood remediation program for municipalities, for which County Executive Andrew J. Spano in the wake of the nor”™easter pledged $50 million over five years to cover half of municipalities”™ design and construction costs for approved projects. Feiner, a prominent advocate for the abolition of county government, said he did meet with the head of the county”™s flood task force, but the town has not filed a flood plan for funding.
Instead of costly construction, said Feiner, the town is sending out inspectors ahead of predicted storms to check storm drains and issue violation citations to property owners who have not kept them free of clogging debris. “We think that could have been a big reason for the flooding,” he said.
Retail tenants on the flooded block in part agree with that assessment. But they hold the town of Greenburgh primarily responsible by failing to supervise the storm system”™s upkeep and require grating over all storm drains and pipes. They have sued the town for unspecified damages.
In a lawsuit on behalf of eight business tenants filed in state Supreme Court in July 2008, attorney Bernard H. Fishman claimed town officials knew at least two years before the nor”™easter that the storm drainage system on East Hartsdale Avenue was inadequate to handle a moderate or 25-year storm and the problem could be solved by forming a drainage district. The lawsuit also seeks damages from the town for allowing the construction of a golf club, public parking garage and apartment buildings in the area without requiring their owners to build separate storm systems.
Also named as defendants in the suit are the Hartsdale Public Parking District, Scarsdale Golf Club Inc. and Ellar Realty Corp., a family owned New York City company that has been landlord on the flooded commercial block since 1944.
“We don”™t feel that any liability is attributable to us,” Toby G. Ritter, a Mamaroneck resident and president of Ellar Realty Corp., said last week. “Some of the tenants are probably going to withdraw from the lawsuit against us.”
Fishman, the plaintiffs”™ attorney, said owners of Harrys of Hartsdale, the upscale restaurant that anchors one end of the business block, this year withdrew their legal action against the landlord as a condition for a lease extension. Owners of Lia”™s agreed to do the same as a condition for the landlord”™s approval to sell their lease to the pizzeria owners, Fishman said.
Tenant groups in two flooded co-op apartment buildings just west of the business block separately have filed similar lawsuits against the town. Harrys of Hartsdale”™s owners also have a lawsuit pending against their commercial insurer, Admiral Insurance Co. Restaurateur Steven Palm has said the 230 E. Hartsdale Ave. eatery lost $400,000 in equipment and inventory in the flood and another $250,000 to $300,000 in dining business during its six-week closing for repairs. The insurance company denied his claim because the flood was an “act of God.”
“There”™s a lot of people throwing a lot of blame around,” Hartsdale real estate broker Martin A. Deitch, managing agent for the retail block, said last week. “This will go on for 10, 15, 20 years,” he said of the slow-moving legal action. “It”™s a no-win situation.”
Two years after the deluge, “People are still afraid” on East Hartsdale Avenue, said Deitch, a Hartsdale native with a local historian”™s precise memory of the grocers, pharmacies and other merchants that have come and gone on the block. “How do you predict a 300-year flood? There”™s no guarantee that it won”™t happen again.”
Yet that fear has not kept away new tenants. Next door to the soon-to-open pizzeria, owners of an Indian snack-food restaurant, Masala Kraft Cafe, are doing an estimated $50,000 renovation of a 700-square-foot store formerly occupied by Cross Westchester Cleaners, which did not reopen after the flood. TrustCo Bank Corp. NY this month invested nearly $2 million to open a 2,025-square-foot branch office at 220 E. Hartsdale Ave. HSBC Bank USA closed its branch office there after the flood.
Across East Hartsdale Avenue, on a block spared flood damage but not the slower flow of shopping traffic in the flood”™s aftermath, Indigo Chic Boutique, a women”™s fashion shop, recently opened in a 1,500-square-foot space at 221 E. Hartsdale Ave. Â
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“There are no vacancies just for the sheer reason of all the people who commute from here” on Metro-North, Deitch said. “The success of this town is the people who live on East Hartsdale Avenue who frequent the stores,” especially on their way home from the train station.
Still, “The economic downturn and the flood kyboshed a lot of retail,” Deitch said. “I”™d say the flood did the worst. The economic downturn was the nail in the coffin.”
“You can tell the difference between before the flood and after the flood,” said Raj Kapur, co-owner of the Big Top toy store at 228 E. Hartsdale Ave., where flood losses totaled about $140,000. “It”™s big numbers, huge numbers. You can tell there was a big drop in business. Â
“I”™m not sure what happened,” said Kapur, who this month with his brother and partner, Munish, opened a second Big Top store at the Jefferson Valley Mall in Yorktown Heights. “I think part of it has to do with the fact that people changed their habits” when shopping. “I think business is never the same after a flood.”
“I don”™t think stores recovered from the flood,” said Phil Benincasa Jr., who with his father operates King Aristocrat dry cleaners at 212 E. Hartsdale Ave. “The town doesn”™t seem as busy as it used to be.” To offset the drop in walk-in trade, the Benincasas have increased their pick-up and delivery service from about half to about 80 percent of their business, he said.
Phil Benincasa Sr. said shopping traffic began to slow the year before the flood during construction of the public parking garage behind the business block. The flood reinforced shoppers”™ change in habits.
“Now you have the economy, so it”™s like three strikes and you”™re out,” said his son.
The Benincasas were among 60 business owners in Westchester who took out disaster relief loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The SBA approved a total of $10.6 million in loans to Westchester businesses, including a $350,000 loan to Harrys of Hartsdale owners.
“This country was founded on small business,” said the younger Benincasa. “It”™s a little disconcerting,” he said, that flood-stricken businesses were eligible only for loans while residential victims of the flood received disaster relief grants.
The Benincasas have seen the recession”™s “trickledown effect” in their business. Laid-off residents do not bring in their business clothes for cleaning; fewer customers bring in clothes for vacations and dining occasions.
“We”™re hanging on,” said the younger Benincasa. “I hope the government would have sent some of that $750 billion our way.”
At Frankie and Fanucci”™s, the owners, who operate two restaurants in Brooklyn, spent a year scouting Westchester and Fairfield County, Conn., for their first suburban location. Hartsdale had the business and residential density, including young professionals, that they sought, said Nagy.
Opening in a recession? “If you give people the right quality at moderate price points and you give them a good experience, they”™ll keep coming out,” said the restaurateur.
“It”™s cyclical,”™ he said. “Our perspective is, stay focused. Stay true to your concept and ride out the cycle.”
