In Riverdale


Seven miles north of Madison Avenue in the Bronx borough of New York City, Friedland Properties owns most of the storefronts on Johnson Avenue, a prime shopping strip. It’s where Robert Fanuzzi, former chairman of Riverdale’s community board, said Friedland is pursuing a “Madison Avenue strategy” by allowing storefronts to remain vacant.

“Exorbitant rates were forcing turnover, we were losing some cherished local businesses and new ones weren’t coming in,” Fanuzzi said.

Blue Bay, a diner on Johnson Avenue beloved by Riverdale’s senior-citizen set, was able to negotiate a lower rent with Friedland only after community members pressured the landlord and a state senator became involved by writing a letter to the Friedlands in support of the diner, said Charles Moerdler, a member of the Riverdale community board’s land-use committee. Friedland said the lower rent was purely a business decision.

“My lawyer warned me not to threaten to walk,” said Ken Dubin, owner of the Corner Café, which moved his business after 22 years as a Friedland tenant. “Unless he believes you have some place to go, he’ll call your bluff, show you the door.”

Friedland said he knows people in Riverdale want the stores filled -- “nowhere near as much as I’d like to have them filled.” He said the vacancy rate for his properties is below the national average, “but they’re a little more vociferous” in Riverdale.

Friedland said he wasn’t interested in taking advantage of rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in other New York City boroughs Brooklyn and Queens.

“I’d rather be an expert in a limited area,” he said. “I don’t want to go out to Idaho to look at something.”

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