EAST HARTSDALE AVE-A YEAR AFTER THE FLOOD--REPORT FROM WESTCHESTER BUSINESS JOURNAL

Soggy anniversary
The flood, a year later
By JOHN GOLDEN
In Hartsdale’s business district, two vacant storefronts stand as haunting reminders of what passed though here one year ago and what some fear might come again. They are flanked by 11 retailers and restaurants that have reopened along East Hartsdale Avenue, two with new ownership, since the nor’easter last April left this business block under several feet of flood water and sank some recovering victims more deeply in business debt. Before that weekend storm and severe flooding, an HSBC bank branch and one of the block’s two dry cleaners occupied those empty stores. Neither returned after the flood. Prospective tenants there have looked but walked away.Last year’s flood “was an aberration,” said Martin Deitch, founding partner of Aries Deitch and Edelson Inc., the Hartsdale real estate company marketing the vacant buildings. “However, trying to get retailers or companies past the concept that it can happen again is a huge hurdle. Everyone has this concept that it’s going to happen. It’s a perception that’s difficult to overcome even though it’s great real estate. The town is vibrant.”Deitch said he is in talks with another bank that might open a branch there. He is talking too to small merchants to lease the space. For owners who reopened, business has not been what it was before the flood, a few said. First the rising water, now a receding economy has hurt them.“Businesswise, it hasn’t come back,” said Phil Benincasa Sr. at King-Aristocrat dry cleaners. With the spring flood wiping out the busiest dry-cleaning and garment-storage season, “We lost a year’s business almost and it really hasn’t recouped.”“People form certain habits. They find other places to go, places to shop, places to eat,” said Benincasa. “All the businesses here are suffering, even the ones that stayed open” across East Hartsdale Avenue.Benincasa said he still is waiting to receive the federal Small Business Administration loan for which he was approved after “reams of paperwork.” In Westchester County, the SBA approved 60 disaster loans totaling $10,609,600 to businesses stricken by the April flood.“How will I use it? To catch up on all the bills I haven’t paid,” the dry-cleaning merchant said.Benincasa was one of eight Hartsdale business owners who last year filed a lawsuit against business district landlords, the town of Greenburgh and the Hartsdale Parking Authority, which operates a public parking garage directly behind the row of flooded buildings, seeking unspecified damages for an allegedly inadequately designed, overloaded and neglected storm drainage system that they claim caused the flooding. Owners said they do not expect the lawsuit to be settled soon. One owner said storm drains have been regularly maintained by the various parties responsible for them since the lawsuit was filed. Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner last week said the town board commissioned a study of flooding on East Hartsdale Avenue and is waiting for a final report on the causes and both short-term and long-term recommendations.“A lot of people got hurt,” said Dee Francetic, whose eponymous hair salon on East Hartsdale Avenue was not in the flood’s path. “Fortunately, the town is coming back to life and merchants are doing better.” After a slow winter in the business district, “Maybe with the spring it will give us a chance to have a better year,” she said.At Enrico’s Pastry Shop and Caffe, a steady stream of customers picked out favored sweets from glass display cases one morning last week. Hartsdale residents Joseph and Michelle Floriano opened the popular and well-stocked bakery last October, naming it after the original Enrico’s started 57 years ago by Joe Floriano’s parents in the Morris Park section of the Bronx.The previous bakery on the spot, one of the flood victims, “just kind of fell flat” in recent years, Floriano said. The Bronx transplant had his eye on the location for some time, he said, and he has brought business back to the avenue since acquiring it. “Holidays, we had lines outside the door and down the block,” he said.“The area needed some kind of stimulation,” said Floriano. Employees at Enrico’s next-door neighbor, Rite Aid Pharmacy, told him their store’s business had gone up as much as 25 percent since the bakery brought back shoppers to the block.
Another new business on East Hartsdale Avenue, Hunan Village II, has replaced a former Chinese restaurant closed by the flood. Since opening at New Year’s, “Business has been OK,” said Gloria Jeng, whose husband, chef Jimmy Zheng, heads the kitchen staff.Still, business could be better, she said, and the flood is not to blame for the lack of customers.“I think people eat out less because of the economy,” said Jeng. “The takeouts are not as busy and people order less.”At Harrys of Hartsdale, the upscale eatery that anchors one end of the business block, owner Steven Palm has observed much the same with his business. “As far as the flood recovery, we have recovered,” he said last week. “Now after the flood, now you have a new situation” that comes with a sinking economy.Palm, whose Westchester Restaurant Group also includes Underhills Crossing in Bronxville, lost an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 in business during the six weeks he was closed after the flood and another $400,000 in lost restaurant equipment, inventory and infrastructure. A year later, he is still in litigation to collect from his insurance company, which denied his claim because the flood was an “act of God.” Palm said he took out a $350,000 disaster relief loan from the Small Business Administration “just to survive.”Now, “With the hard economic times that we’re experiencing, I think everyone has been hit with a decrease, if not just a flat line, in sales,” he said. By closing one day a week since February and introducing a lower-priced tapas menu, Harrys of Hartsdale has been able to maintain last year’s sales figures and improve cash flow, Palm said. But the restaurant’s 30 percent increase in food and gas expenditures this year cannot be passed on to customers, “otherwise we’ll put ourselves out of the market,” he said.In the slowed economy, “A lot of the high-end restaurants are getting hit more than the mid-range restaurants because we’re a luxury, not a necessity,” he said.“We went through this in 2001” after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Palm said. “You’ve just got to ride the wave.”