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The fire this time

By Sarah Portlock
The Brooklyn Paper
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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.”

Chemtob had hired the architecture firm Fogarty & Finger to create a three-story, glass facade 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

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