District Background and Review of Fiscal Year 2011 Activities
A. Neighborhood Developments:
This last fiscal year has been an extraordinary one for the Fifth Avenue BID. Although there has been serious economic stress almost everywhere we look, our district has continued to display an amazingly healthy real estate and retail environment.
In the area of property values, a trend that developed in the last few years, retail condominiums, continued to expand unabated. As Adam Pincus of the Real Deal put it on April 1, 2011: "The notion of a $1 billion retail blockfront on Fifth Avenue seem(ed) like a pipe dream from the boom times." Nevertheless, that is just what happened when Inditex, a parent of Spanish retailer Zara, purchased a subdivided retail condo of 38,750 square feet from a consortium of owners for $324 million.
That deal comes out to a mind boggling $8,307 per square foot! Only a few years earlier, this and the adjacent space, were sold for $5,833 per square foot. Our district now contains no fewer than four retail condominiums including 717 Fifth, 699 Fifth and the separate ownerships of the remaining storefronts at 666 Fifth.
From a retail store point of view, we have seen the openings of Brequet at 711 Fifth, Godiva at 650 Fifth, Guess at 575 and the redesign and expansion of Lacoste at 608 Fifth Avenue. We are also aware of additional store openings planned for next year. Meanwhile, both Cushman & Wakefield and CB Richard Ellis continue to rate this section of Fifth Avenue as demanding the highest ground floor rents in the world. All of this reinforces our original philosophy of "If you improve it, they will come." In a neighborhood that has clear Zoning Resolution restrictions regarding illuminated signs, some retailers are ignoring the City’s rules and using large scale illuminated media to promote their stores. A special committee has been formed to study this issue and the committee has embarked on a communication and notice program in order to encourage self restraint. In addition, private busses are using part of the Avenue as a depot-like idling area. On inspection, we can observe tourists gathering at certain locations that appear to be designated pickup spots for a group of bus companies. B. Review of Accomplishments:
There is a trend, however, that causes us some concern. Some retailers are taking advantage of the Building Department’s self certification process and lack of enforcement with regard to sign regulations.
SAFETY
Our security staff and program continue to generate crime reduction numbers in cooperation with our local police precinct. For the twelve month period ended June 30, 2011, street crime within our district boundaries has fallen again from 48 per year to 37 or by 22.9%! These major crimes statistics are based on the FBI index and taken directly from the precinct’s internal data.
And if we look back to the inception of our BID security program, we are down an amazing 95% based on the seven major crimes tracked by the Federal Government. SANITATION The Fifth Avenue BID’s Clean Team continues to provide our businesses with near spotless streets, as our members have come to expect.
In addition, we assisted over 218,000 visitors to our district and logged 46,618 man hours.
Before the creation of our Business Improvement District, trash receptacles would overflow by early morning every day. We have a seven day a week crew circulating through our area to see that these conditions are corrected from morning to evening.
In the last year we logged 17,056 man hours and stuffed over 90,000 trash bags to accomplish this work.