Our Views: Business district burns, Great Neck officials fiddle

The Island Now

The numbers themselves are bad enough: of the 410 storefronts in the villages of Great Neck Plaza, Great Neck Estates and Great Neck — the heart of Great Neck’s shopping district — 53 are not occupied.

Even worse is the lack of answers offered by Great Neck officials in how to respond to the problem.  Which pretty much amounts to little or nothing.

Instead, the officials offer excuses such as the growth of the internet sales, competition from shopping malls, and Great Neck’s changing demographics.

Jean Celender, the mayor of Great Neck Plaza where 26 of the 214 village storefronts are empty, even cited the 2008 recession.

One wonders what the statute of limitations is for using the 2008 recession as an excuse for empty storefronts.

It is true that the growth in internet sales has impacted retailers in Great Neck and across the country, but the internet is nothing new nor is the allure of shopping centers.

Other shopping districts on the North Shore have adapted and even thrived by attracting restaurants and other service-oriented businesses.

The villages of Roslyn and Williston Park have both developed into vibrant dining areas in recent years.

In fact, the restaurant-led growth of Roslyn’s shopping district has, in turn, help attract a 78-unit luxury, townhouse development that has made its proximity to the shopping district a central part of its sales pitch.

In completing this virtuous circle, the developers are building a promenade along the shore of Hempstead Harbor behind the shopping district.

Mineola’s downtown shopping district in the Mineola is also seeing increased demand for storefronts following trustees’ approval of four residential developments since 2008 that will ultimately add 1,075 apartments there.

This did not happen by chance.

Mineola trustees engaged in a communitywide effort to develop a master plan more than a decade ago to address problems in the village’s business district.

The four apartment buildings are the end of product of that master plan.

Developing a master plan for Great Neck would not be as easy.

With nine villages, a park district serving six of those villages and a variety of other special districts Great Neck has gone where no other community has gone before in terms of grass-roots community control.

This is popular with residents and people who like seeing the word trustee or mayor before their name, but it does not lend itself to easily developing a plan for the shopping district.

A half-mile stretch along Middle Neck Road where many of the empty storefronts are located fall within the villages of Great Neck, Great Neck Estates and Great Neck Plaza as well as the Town of North Hempstead.

The villages of Russell Gardens and Kensington abut the shopping district and the Great Neck Park District owns the parking lots adjacent to the Great Neck LIRR train station. 

The Great Neck Village Officials Association, which is comprised of the mayors of the nine villages, could serve as a forum for developing a communitywide plan, but has not.

Nor has the Town of North Hempstead.

Town officials have argued that they have little jurisdiction over a shopping district that falls under the control of several village governments.

Technically, this is true.

But there is nothing preventing them using their position to call all these village government together, along with business groups and residents, to develop a plan. All that is needed is the will.

In the absence of a communitywide effort, village governments can take steps to better attract businesses, starting with an adjustment in attitude.

Too often village officials appear to be in a state of denial, acting as if businesses are busting down their doors to open there. They are not.

The number of empty storefronts is at crisis proportion. The 53 empty storefronts means there are 53 businesses not drawing shoppers to their stores and the stores around them, 53 stores not drawing people to Great Neck. 

But in recent months, the owners of Shop Delight, a Glatt Kosher supermarket in Great Neck Plaza, twice proposed opening a second business — a supermarket in Great Neck Estates and a butcher shop a few doors down from its operation in the Plaza. And twice ran into village opposition.

The owners withdrew their application in Great Neck Estates in the face of resident opposition. The site, which previously housed a Rite Aid, now sits empty.

The owners withdrew the application in Great Neck Plaza in the face of trustee complaints about code violations and concerns about traffic. The storefront proposed for the butcher shop also remains empty. 

We’re not saying the villages don’t have an important role in regulating development. We just ask that they don’t drive businesses away in the process.

The Plaza has also forbidden valet parking for restaurants, again citing traffic and enforcement issues that apparently every other village on the North Shore has figured out how to solve.

Great Neck’s shopping district is one of the most physically attractive shopping areas on Long Island with tree-lined brick sidewalks and decorative street lamps. It was once a magnet for shoppers across the North Shore and Queens.

Better leadership will be needed to bring it back. Otherwise, Great Neck will stop being Great Neck.

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