By Rich Bockmann
The Bayside Village Business Improvement District will be raising its yearly assessment by approximately $50,000, retroactive to Jan. 1, according to Chairman Jim Riso.
The City Council Finance Committee voted unanimously at a public hearing in Manhattan Jan. 18 to approve the BID’s request to increase its assessment from $81,368 to $155,000.
Elizabeth DeLeon, deputy commissioner of the city Department of Small Business Services, was the only person to testify at the meeting and spoke in support of the increase, a department representative said.
Riso said the BID would raise its assessment to $131,000 for fiscal year 2012, and the remainder of the approved increase would be phased in over a three-year period.
“It’s just enough to cover the executive director’s salary and the better holiday lights we’ve been paying for over the last two years,” he said.
Riso said he was in the process of putting together a job solicitation to fill the vacancy left when former Executive Director Gregg Sullivan was fired in December. The new executive director’s salary will be increased over the previous one of $30,000, Riso said, but he was not yet sure of the amount of the increase.
Riso said that under the new assessment, property owners on Bell Boulevard between 35th Avenue and Northern Boulevard and those on 41st Avenue between 214th Place and 213th Street will pay about $24 or $25 per linear foot of property frontage, up from $15 per foot per year.
The chairman said that in the absence of an executive director, board members are pitching in to help encourage business in the district.
“Foot traffic is still concentrated near the railroad to 39th Avenue,” Riso said. “Businesses north of 39th and south of 42nd seem to struggle more than businesses right in the core. Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is attract more people to Bell through marketing, promotions and fairs. We’re trying to get more people to the two ends of Bell.”
Riso is a member of the Briarwood management company, which manages buildings with a combined linear store frontage on Bell Boulevard of more than 200 feet, including the ones occupied by tenants Tiger Schulmann’s Mixed Martial Arts school and Merrill Lynch.
“We own a lot of property on Bell. I’m not just the chairman, I’m also a landowner,” he said.
Assessment increases are charged to property owners, who may or may not choose to pass them along to tenants, and Riso said he believed the increase would not be detrimental to those tenants’ businesses.
“If you have a struggling tenant you don’t want to lose, you don’t want to pass that along. If you pass on $300 a year to a tenant that’s struggling to begin with, it could cost thousands of dollars a month with the empty space. It just doesn’t pay in some instances.”
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
