The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds

The fire this time

By Sarah Portlock
The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
Fogarty Finger Architects
This in-scale loft-style building would rise three stories over the burned remains of Zuzu’s Petals and its neighboring fruit store, which were lost to fire more than three years ago. The site has been vacant since.
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Tom Callan
A developer has finally put forward a plan to redevelop the site of Zuzu’s Petals and Olive Vine Pizza on Seventh Avenue, both of which burned in a fire four years ago.

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

Two long-empty storefronts on Seventh Avenue won’t be fixed up until the right tenant comes along, the owner says.

David Chemtob, who owns the two buildings at 79–81 Seventh Ave. that were destroyed in a fire in August, 2004, told The Brooklyn Paper this week that he will custom design the spaces to fit a tenant’s needs.

“We’re waiting to see what type of tenant we’re going to get and whether they want a basement, or two stories, or one story,” Chemtob said of the buildings, which are near Berkeley Place. “I don’t want to do the job twice.”

Brooklyn Bridge Realty

Chemtob had hired the architecture firm Fogarty & Finger to create a three-story, glass fa√ade building, but a contract with a tenant fell through and he says he’s gone back to the drawing board.

“The plans are nowhere now, and it’s still for rent,” he said. “Once I sign a deal with a tenant, I would renovate it and work something out with the tenant.”

The site is the former home of Zuzu’s Petals, which moved to 374 Fifth Ave. after the fire gutted the flower shop. Later, owner Fonda Sara opened a smaller outpost at 158-A Berkeley Pl., around the corner from the Seventh Avenue location.

“We just want something for the neighborhood because [the fire] ruined that block, being unoccupied for so long and just sitting there,” Sara said, though added that it’s unlikely that she’d move her resettled floral enterprise back to Seventh Avenue.

If Chemtob renovates instead of rebuilds, he must first fix the roof and clean out the existing storefronts, which have sat untouched since the day of the fire.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

←Williamsburg Waterfront: 40 stories and a rule
→Cobble Hill: One for the books! BookCourt expansion complete

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

Brooklyn Paper Parent
Water Street Restaurant
The Brooklyn Paper Burger Contest