Heading over to the east side of Bed-Stuy, there’s an interesting corner storefront property available for rent. Located on the northeast corner of Saratoga Avenue and Decatur Street (101 Saratoga Avenue), the store is a part of a four story building that looks like it had a nice brickfront renovation. You can see the bright details and the apartment building entrance is rather inviting.
For those of you who love to draw neighborhood lines, take your red pens out now. You’re probably thinking this area is actually Ocean Hill/Brownsville. True that, but neighborhood lines seemed to have bled over the years where some considered this to be Bed Stuy. So let the gerrymandering begin! I’m all verklempt! Talk amongst yoursleves!
Realtor Toni Martin of Corcoran Real Estate lists the property at $1,650 for rent and says the following about the space on her page:
Prime corner commercial space in Ocean Hill Section of Bedford Stuyvesant in a beautiful turn of the century building. Situated on a 22×55 ft. lot offers approximately 1000 square feet with 26 ft. of wraparound frontage. Close to major transportation and good foot traffic. Features 12 Ft original tin ceilings. Great retail or office space.
The store is surrounded by some well kept and overlooked brownstones, as well as some newer homes built in the 80s and early 90s in an area that was once considered an urban eyesore. It’s also near Saratoga Park (more on this booming park and its surroundings in a future post). It would be nice to see an alternative thrive here. There are businesses on the other three corners of the intersection – a bodega, a Chinese take-out restaurant and a West Indian take-out restaurant. I’m not putting down or insulting any of these businesses, but a it would be nice to see something less predictable. Judging on the layout and style, what kind of business would be suitable here that could be successful?
Once upon a time, Bed-Stuy’s borders were designed to group the heaviest concentration of black people residing in this area (all the way to Eastern Parkway). 101 Saratoga falls within Community Board 3′s district. So there. It’s Bed-Stuy.
A “real food” grocery store would be most helpful for this area. Saratoga Park is great for getting a little walk/run exercise in/around. Nice playground and areas to let dogs run around in.
I passed this location a while back and thought it was a great renovation. It’s important to revitalize a lot of the architecture in Bed Stuy/Ocean Hill (I know some dispute where the border may exist for this property, but some have settled on it being in Ocean Hill)
There are tough challenges to going into business in this location. Will need to have a great plan with good offerings in goods and/or services here.
Demographics won’t support cafe’s, lounges, most eateries of sorts unless it’s fast food takeout (Pizza, Chinese or Carribean)
That is a nice looking building!
Decatur and Saratoga is pretty clearly Bed-Stuy. (Pretty much anything south of Broadway and west of the Junction in that area is in to me.) I’m not sure what the above poster meant by ‘demographics’ not supporting anything other than fast-food eateries. Every neighborhood NEEDS certain services and a greengrocers’ would be an excellent and much-needed addition to this corner of Bed-Stuy.