A published report
last week had Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, looking to
build a mega-store in Downtown Brooklyn.
But Brooklyn business insiders feverishly denied the assertion, made in
a Dec. 20 article in the Daily News business section, while city officials
balked at the very suggestion.
Ever since the plan to rezone Downtown Brooklyn passed city review last
summer, property owners in the affected 60-block area have been hustling
to sell off plots of land for top dollar or plan for their development.
And with the addition of a Target in Atlantic Terminal and approval of
plans to build an Ikea in Red Hook in the past year, big-box stores that
have been nationally successful are scrambling to find ways of tapping
into the urban niche.
“We’re always looking for opportunities to expand,” Wal-Mart
spokeswoman Mia Maston told The Brooklyn Papers. The retailer boasts 5,233
stores worldwide, including Supercenters that include supermarkets, Sam’s
Club bulk stores, and smaller neighborhood stores.
In December, Wal-Mart announced plans to open its first store in New York
City, in Rego Park, Queens, on the already shopping traffic-heavy Queens
Boulevard. Wal-Mart officials hope to break ground for the 135,000-square-foot
store in 2007 or 2008.
Maston said the News report about Downtown Brooklyn, however, was “not
true.”
“It’s not like it’s ‘never never’,” she
said about Brooklyn, “but at this time, we don’t have any plans.”
The News reported “the world’s largest retailer is in talks
about building a store” next to the 475,000-square-foot Gallery at
Fulton Street shopping mall.
Reporter Lore Croghan attributed the information to unnamed sources.
The story said Wal-Mart plans to build where a parking garage now stands
at the intersection of Willoughby Street, Albee Square and Flatbush Avenue
Extension. That site has for months been advertised by owner Joseph Sitt
as available for class-A office space.
Sitt spent millions renovating the former Albee Square Mall, which he
bought in 2001 after a period in which it was owned by Metrotech developer
Forest City Ratner, which renamed it the Gallery at Metrotech.
Since then, Sitt’s been public about looking for another prime anchor
tenant for the struggling mall besides its mainstay Toys ‘R’
Us.
Over the years, as the number of retail vacancies in the mall grew, a
number of spaces were converted to office use.
Sitt did not return calls seeking comment by press time, but a spokesman
for his investment company, Thor Equities, denied he was in talks with
Wal-Mart.
“It’s not happening,” said spokesman Lee Silberstein. “There’s
no deal, there are no discussions happening, it was a totally erroneous
report.”
Silberstein added, “It is likely that Sitt will be announcing retailers
in the coming month, but Wal-Mart will not be one of them.”
He confirmed that plans were moving forward to replace the concrete garage
that abuts the mall (which still has vacant stores) with a 1.2 million-square-foot
office tower, as The Papers first reported in August, and said they expected
the first two floors would have roughly 200,000 square feet of retail
space.
Kenneth Adams, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said he
was concerned about what a Wal-Mart would mean to the area.
“If national retailers want to build stores in Downtown Brooklyn,”
he said, mentioning that many already had, “they ought to conform
with the plan and become part of the overall goals of the Downtown [Brooklyn
rezoning] plan.”
That plan largely calls for the development of office skyscrapers with
ground-floor retail.
“We shouldn’t be sacrificing very valuable office sites,”
he added. “Let’s not throw away an opportunity here.”
Even if a Wal-Mart was looking to develop in the Downtown Brooklyn shopping
district, the third largest business district in the city, the store would
have a battle on its hands, said several city officials and business leaders.
Echoing Adams’ sentiment, the city’s Economic Development Corporation
advised against a standalone Wal-Mart. EDC spokeswoman Janel Paterson
said “it would not be appropriate” for the area.
“Any project that featured a Wal-Mart as part of a larger commercial
project would have to be carefully reviewed to be sure that it was appropriate
to the plan,” she said.
Michael Burke, director of the Downtown Brooklyn Council said he also
thought the Wal-Mart rumor was bogus. “That was the first I’ve
heard of it,” he said. “According to the folks I’ve talked
to it’s not happening.
“I find it very hard to believe that if Wal-Mart wants to move into
the New York market, that they would want to move to Downtown Brooklyn,”
Burke said, explaining the development parameters in the area hardly fit
their big-box store model.
“The area is just not suitable for that, and my gut is that they
would have to significantly change their business model for that to work,”
he said.
Burke also expressed concern that such a mega-store would alter the nature
of the downtown shopping district, which aside from Macy’s on Fulton
Mall, is primarily comprised of smaller, non-chain stores.
“Clearly there are other retailers that are a much better fit,”
he said.
“I think you would find opposition from pretty much everyone in Downtown
Brooklyn,” Burke added. “It’s not something people would
welcome.”
