Getting In on the Ground Floor

More Businesses and Services Coming to NYCHA

More Businesses and Services Coming to NYCHA

One way that NYCHA is working to generate more revenue to make repairs and renovations is by leasing ground floor spaces in developments to businesses and services that NYCHA residents need. In the past year, we have leased over 41,000 square feet in 16 formerly vacant spaces to commercial and community-based tenants. These new tenants are generating more than $500,000 a year that we can apply to repairs and other urgent needs.

One new retail tenant, Dr. James Kim, operates an optometry practice on the ground floor of Williamsburg Houses. “All New Yorkers deserve access to great neighborhood services, especially health care,” he said. “Providing the same high-quality care to everyone in Williamsburg, including NYCHA residents, is not only good for my practice but the right thing to do.”

In a neighborhood where long waitlists are the norm for quality child care and educational services, a City-licensed child care center opened last year in the ground floor of Washington Heights Rehab. The Mamá Tingó Childcare Learning Center, run by a community-based organization, provides 110 children with universal pre-k and ACS EarlyLearn NYC programming. The center’s first UPK class, comprised of kids from the Washington Heights and Inwood community, graduated this June. Administrative Director Felix Arias said that the center’s programming is “a vital resource for local parents, many of whom are single, working parents. We’re looking to expand to the Bronx and want to see if NYCHA has any available sites there.”

Dilma Ortiz, the proprietor of the Fabric Barn Corp., had been selling fabrics and textiles to the Williamsburg community out of the same storefront location for 25 years. “But the owner of that building wanted to sell the building and wouldn’t renew my lease,” she said. Ms. Ortiz wanted to keep her business in the neighborhood but found that most of the rents were out of reach. Fortunately, she found the perfect place, in the ground floor of Williamsburg Houses, which provides the stability she desired for her long-standing business.

Up next, an exciting development at Harlem River Houses: a New York Public Library branch will open there in a formerly vacant, 3,400-square-foot ground-floor space.