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Nylon stockings in every color and design adorn the window of a small store just off the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. In the far corner of the display hangs a row of socks with Mickey Mouse emblems--no doubt an item store owners Emery and Vitoria Chu are expecting to be a future big seller.
In October, the Chus opened their fourth Footloose shop at one of the new retail sites at the crossroads of Times Square, where Broadway and Seventh Avenue cross 42nd Street. Mr. Chu says his other Manhattan shops, smaller than this new 1,000-square-foot store, each average $500,000 in annual sales. But he has higher aspirations for this new location. "We're just starting out," he says. "But once Disney opens up, we expect business to get better."
For now, only a limited number of small businesses are going to find the magic kingdom in the $1 billion makeover of Times Square. While nearly 11% of ground-floor retail space is currently vacant throughout the Times Square Business Improvement District--which encompasses 40th to 53rd streets--rents are skyrocketing. What's more, many of the area's landlords are reluctant to take a chance on smaller entrepreneurs and are renting instead to more established regional and national chains.
Hope for smaller business
But there is hope. Rebecca Robertson, head of the 42nd Street Development Project, says opportunities for smaller retailers are likely to surface within the next few months, once developers complete deals with larger tenants. Moreover, observers say that the revenues generated from traffic flow within the BID will offset the high rental rates, which now average $185 per square foot, up from $165 last year.
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