The Roslyn Lumber Yard Project, a housing and retail development on Lumber Road in downtown Roslyn, has signed up its first retail tenant, a women’s clothing boutique called Shag New York.
The retail space will be ready for move-in by late November, said Kevin Durson, an owner of the Lumber Yard Project along with John Santos and Josh Amini.
“We needed a change. We needed something great for our customers,” said Randi Butwin, who owns and operates Shag along with Ann Corn.
Butwin and Durson have been friends since Butwin opened her store a decade ago at its current location at 1370 Old Northern Blvd.
The primary factor motivating the move was a dearth of parking on Old Northern Boulevard and a promise of far more at the Lumber Yard, Butwin said.
“Parking here [on Old Northern Boulevard] is horrible,” she said. “If you are 30 seconds late on the meter, they give you a $20 ticket. My customers can’t find parking and there’s nowhere for my employees to park.”
Business owners have repeatedly raised the issue of downtown parking with the Roslyn Board of Trustees, which hired a parking consulting firm named Level G Associates to conduct a study. The final draft of that study will be submitted soon, but Mayor John Durkin has said the problem will persist for the short term.
Butwin and Corn have chosen to take matters into their own hands.
Durson said he expects more business owners will do the same.
“We have 35 to 40 parking spots set aside for retailers,” he said. “And the beauty of our property is that it also ties into the municipal lot right behind Chase bank.”
The first formal meeting between Shag and the Lumber Yard took place in late August, when Butwin and Corn took a tour of the retail and residential facilities at the complex. They signed the lease about six weeks later, in mid-October.
Durson said he is in lease negotiations with seven or eight retail tenants, including a hair salon, a shoe company, a wellness center and additional clothing stores. The cost of retail space in the Lumber Yard ranges from $50 to $60 per square foot, said a Parallel Realty broker, Jordan Domroe, who represents the Lumber Yard’s retail property.
The property also features a 10,000-square-foot barn, which has received interest from furniture and design retailers, Durson said.
He said he hopes to have 75 percent of the complex’s retail space rented by mid-January. The property’s 20 residential apartments will likely be filled sooner than that, he said. The preliminary prices of the apartments range from $4,750 per month to $6,750 per month for a two bedroom/two bath, said Peter Crifo, a broker at Douglas-Elliman who represents the Lumber Yard’s residential property. The more expensive apartments include an outdoor terrace, a fireplace and a view. There are also two one-bedroom apartments, but the price is not yet available.
Butwin said she has never experienced having residents above her retail space, but figures the apartments will bring her 20 new customers who can afford her store.
Butwin said she “is not in the least concerned” about a lack of foot traffic that might hurt the store as the first at the Lumber Yard.
“My store is a destination,” she said. “Now it’s a destination with a parking lot.”
