After 18 years, Iliad Bookshop is moving out of its NoHo location. The landlord is raising the rent and the store’s owner, Dan Weinstein, said he can’t continue to eke out the modest profit the store has afforded with the increased cost. Weinstein may be at the front end of an exodus march that the area’s current shopkeepers say is likely to occur in the so-called NoHo Arts District as more leases expire. “The area is upgrading big time,” said Roberto Quezadas, a Lankershim Boulevard property owner for the past 30 years. “I’ve seen it go from a poor, old fashioned city to what it is today and what it’s going to be in the future.” But many of the small business owners that once gravitated to the area for its rents (until recently less than $1 a square foot) and its demographics, worry that the much-anticipated gentrification of NoHo will leave them behind. They worry that like other revitalized areas of the city, a new NoHo will be a place that only national chains like Starbucks can afford. “I’ve talked to businesses in Old Town (Pasadena) and I think that’s going to happen here,” said Jackie Toth, the owner of Halloween Town on Lankershim Boulevard. “It became expensive. The people there were open all these extra hours and they didn’t see business improve. They moved their location and they’re doing so much better.” Many landlords are anticipating that the more than 1,200 new residential units currently under construction or recently completed, will bring a new wave of upscale residents who, in turn, will bring much added business to the local shops. And they are raising their rents accordingly. But so far, there are no signs that business is improving in the enclave. Shopkeepers say that the Metro subway line, which was also supposed to bring new economic vitality to the area, has done nothing to bring new customers to their stores. “When we first got here there was a hip coffee shop, a body piercing place, a clothing store. It seemed a lot more happening,” said Nikki B., who, with her husband Phil, owns Flash N Trash Rags on Lankershim Boulevard. “They’re raising the rent because of the new development, but meanwhile business is going down.” Different clientele? And even if the neighborhood does change, chances are that the new clientele will not become the customers of the stores that have been the mainstay of the area specialized novelty stores that cater to a small, often offbeat customer niche. With rents that were as low as 50 cents or 75 cents a square foot, these shopkeepers have been able to remain true to their highly specialized niches. Now local landlords are looking at other areas in the San Fernando Valley, where last year retail rents rose an average of 4 percent last year to $2.10 per square feet, and, together with the promise of revitalization, expect that they will be able to bring their properties up to those levels. “No question everybody is betting on the future,” said Todd Nathanson, a broker with Centers Business Management, which handles a large volume of retail leasing in the North Hollywood area. “And with rents in the Valley overall, it’s kind of happening on its own. Even though the expectations were considered inflated, they’re not inflated considering how much the market has spiked in the last year.” Weinstein said rent at his longtime Vineland and Camarillo boulevards location was about $1 a square foot, but his landlord wanted to raise the rent to $1.70 per square foot when the current lease expires in February. “I was faced with the option of either working for the landlord or buying my own store and working for myself,” said Weinstein. Weinstein was lucky, he said. Because of some property investments he himself has, he was able to acquire a building to relocate his store. Eventually, when the current leases in the new building, at Chandler Boulevard and Cahuenga Avenue run out, he will be able to expand his bookstore to about 8,000 square feet. Others say they don’t have the same options, and they wonder if business will ever increase to levels where they can accommodate substantially higher rents. Some skeptical There is even some question that the new development underway will substantially change the neighborhood. “They developed the area without a decent plan, and they make tiny apartment buildings and they’re asking for $1,800. Who can afford that nonsense?” said Mark Afshar, who owns AMS Automotive on Lankershim Boulevard. “And then what’s going to happen? Businesses are empty, or they’re rented to somebody who doesn’t bring anything to the community.” In other parts of L.A. and around the country many of the neighborhoods that have been gentrified with the kinds of urban villages envisioned in NoHo already possessed some appeal that was enhanced by revitalization efforts. Santa Monica had the pier and the beach when developers created the 3rd Street Promenade. Old Town Pasadena was surrounded by Caltech, a business center and beautiful neighborhoods. NoHo, some argue, is an artificial creation that has yet to show that it can gather the kind of steam developers and city officials are anticipating. “That whole area is somewhere between never been and maybe will never get there,” said Joel Kotkin, Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, Valley resident and author who has written extensively on socio-economic trends. “I would love to see it work. But I always feel more comfortable when gentrification takes place gradually and naturally block by block.”
