Walking his workday turf in Yonkers, Michael Littmann sees progress made and envisions what”™s to come.
At Lincoln Memorial Park, what Littmann calls “the jewel in the crown” of his working territory, a morning crew of “Rangers” from his South Broadway Business Improvement District office ”“ hired by Littmann with the aid of a $50,000 community development grant ”“ sweeps up after weekend litterers and loiterers behind the statue of Abraham Lincoln. A local nursery has newly planted flowering bushes and shade trees in the park at the busy corner of South Broadway and McLean Avenue, part of a makeover led by Littmann in his 7-month-old job as executive director of the South Broadway BID and funded by his office with a $250,000 federal stimulus grant.
Among the park improvements, public restrooms, a much needed convenience for pedestrian shoppers on the avenue, are being renovated. A refurbished kiosk is being readied for police staffing, a vitally needed presence on South Broadway to counter gangs and street thieves, according to retailers and workers there. The kiosk will house monitors for the video security cameras Littmann continues to add to the park and up and down the avenue.
As the park is transformed, “We”™re now seeing people coming out there to have lunch,” he said, “where before it was, for lack of a better word, an undesirable element” that monopolized its use.
”˜A new day on Main Street”™
Walking on the busy avenue lined with nail and beauty salons and barber shops, dentist offices and ethnic restaurants, small delis and furniture stores, card and gift shops, dollar-discount stores and several pharmacies, Littmann points up to light poles and pictures distinctive South Broadway banners, 60 to 70 of them, some day waving over the avenue.
“I want to have this place looking like South Beach,” said Littmann, who knows that colorful Miami strip from his years in economic development and Chamber of Commerce work in Florida.
Thanks to his Rangers, led by crew chief John Zarcone, “I”™m told the street has never looked better,” said Littmann. “Before you can attract, you have to maintain.”
Walking on, he points out decorative sidewalk planters newly planted with evergreen shrubs. Using an $80,000 grant from the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal”™s Main Street program, he plans to buy 20 more to add more artful color to the street. “When that happens, you are going to start to see people sit up and take notice that it”™s a new day on Main Street,” he said.
The 8-year-old South Broadway BID seemed stuck in the old days when Littmann arrived at 487 S. Broadway last September, filling the head post vacated by Jose Velez three months earlier.
“I”™ve just tried to take the organization from point A heading north,” said Littmann. The BID chief himself recently headed north from Staten Island, where he worked for a local development corporation, moving to a modest country home in East Fishkill.
Tapping the ethnic flavor
On South Broadway, Littmann said, his starting point for reviving the business district was “ground zero.” He said he encountered “a lot of apathy” among the merchants and property owners whom he met. “I almost feel like a cheerleader a little bit, because this area has been so down and depressed,” said Littmann, who this spring started a BID quarterly newsletter.
The South Broadway business district is a 1.5-mile strip that runs from Caryl Avenue and Van Cortlandt Park at the Bronx line north to Vark Street and St. Joseph”™s Hospital at the edge of downtown Yonkers. It includes 250 merchants and business owners. Littmann works with a $250,000 annual operating budget, the revenue collected by the city of Yonkers as a special assessment on commercial properties in the district.
Littmann said 80 percent of South Broadway businesses are ethnically owned, with Hispanic merchants a majority in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. He wants to tap the district”™s ethnic flavor with a Taste of South Broadway tour, possibly “a tapas-hopping experience,” he said. “That”™s”™ our strong suit, our restaurants.”
His staff has counted 12 to 18 vacant storefronts along South Broadway, a relatively low number in a recession for a mile-and-a-half strip where security has long been a concern. Littmann would like to bring in a Kosher butcher shop, a specialty Italian shop and an ice cream store to fill some of the vacant spaces.
“For whatever reason, this area has deteriorated over the years,” he said. “I firmly believe that local people would shop if there was a reason to do so.
“It”™s crowded. This place is always crowded. But if you talk to the shopkeepers, the owners, they”™d like to see more customers.”
”˜We can”™t survive”™
Littmann would like to lure shoppers too from the Bronx, suburban Westchester and other Yonkers neighborhoods. And he wants to use BID funds to more directly and effectively benefit retailers on the street.
At St. Moritz Wine, a South Broadway liquor store, owner Chul Yi opened his business in 1979. “At the time it was mostly Irish and Italians, Jewish a little bit,” said the native of Korea. “Now it”™s all changed.” Even 30 years ago, though, the avenue had parking problems, he said. Metered on-street parking today is strictly enforced by Yonkers traffic police.
Though he was robbed in his store a few years ago, Yi said crime has decreased on South Broadway, where gang activity rises with the summer heat. “Ten years ago, 15 years ago, there was more crime in this area,” the storekeeper said. “I make a good business. But most retailers, it”™s tough. It”™s a very difficult situation now. More empty stores now because rents are too high. We can”™t survive.”
At NAI Friedland Realty in Yonkers, Robin Herko, executive vice president, said retail lease deals on South Broadway are in the range of $18 to $25 per square foot. The current asking price on one retail property there is $20 per square foot, she said. Owners”™ typical asking price is $25, she said.
South Broadway, said Herko, “is a tough environment in the good times and now in the bad times, it”™s even tougher. It”™s a challenge.”
”˜A team effort”™
That challenge, though, has not deterred some major retailer from locating there. Walgreens is building a drugstore on a razed site across from Lincoln Memorial Park on McLean Avenue. Rite Aid, perhaps to counter its new nearby competitor, recently expanded its pharmacy on South Broadway.
Walgreens will be the eighth pharmacy operating in the business district, said Milind B. Jani, owner of Jani”™s Pharmacy at 455 S. Broadway, a business started by his father in 1973. “The area is saturated,” he said. “The question is, how much of an impact will (Walgreens) create? We don”™t have an influx of people moving here” to add to the customer base.
Jani said his business should survive the national chain”™s opening because of the personal attention it gives customers. Regarding his second-generation business, “We”™d like to see that succession continue in the family as well as in the community,” he said. “We”™ve been an icon here for years.” For customers, “After 37 years, we”™ve become a part of their family.”
At the South Broadway BID, Littmann is adding officers from the three banks on the avenue to his expanded and reinvigorated board of directors. He”™ll need those banks as partners to accomplish all that he envisions for South Broadway and its merchants, he said.
The BID will step up promotions for retailers such as Yi and Jani. Littmann wants to time a “Come See What”™s Happening” marketing campaign for the holiday season. There are two empty billboards on the Bronx-Yonkers border whose owner might be willing to take a lower price from a nonprofit advertiser, he said.
His goal for 2011? South Broadway business district ads flashed on the Jumbotron to a large captive audience at Yankee Stadium.
“This is fun because we”™re doing so many things that for whatever reason, didn”™t happen before,” Littman said. “The goal is to make South Broadway a great place to live, work, shop, do business ”“ a team effort.”
