Monday, August 6, 2012

Development group announces request for proposals for healthy food business in renovated Bronx slums (NY Daily News)




Bronx


"Kelly Street Green" project would offer grants, free apartment, access to local produce


BY / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS


FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 2012, 6:00 AM


Kelly Street Restoration is developing  five troubled apartment buildings on Kelly St.  in Longwood.

VIOREL FLORESCU FOR NEWS/STR


Kelly Street Restoration is developing five troubled apartment buildings on Kelly St. in Longwood.






Wanted in the Bronx: entrepreneur to convert notorious slum into fresh food enterprise.

The development group behind the renovation of five buildings on Kelly St. is looking for an individual or organization to open a new business there, such as a healthy takeout restaurant, it announced Thursday.

Kelly Street Restoration has released an unusual request for proposals for 2,822 square feet of revamped commercial space at 935 Kelly St., with frontage on bustling E. 163rd St. in Longwood.

The applicant the development group selects will lease the space at a substantial discount - $7 per square foot or roughly 1/4 of market rate - and benefit from up to $150,000 in grants and loans to cover startup expenses.

It will also gain access to fruits and vegetables grown at a new community garden behind the buildings and farms upstate. Lastly, the selected operator will score a rent-free apartment at 935 Kelly St, plus mentorship from successful Manhattan restaurateurs.

Kelly Street Restoration hopes to select a local go-getter with a small bank account and a big heart, said John Crotty of Workforce Housing Advisors, 1/3 of the development group.

Longwood needs a new type of business that caters to busy working people who want to eat healthy, he said. The project is called "Kelly Street Green."

"We want to take someone on a well thought-out gamble, someone who understands that this will require effort and commitment and someone who can be an agent for change," Crotty said.

That someone could be Darada David. For two years, the Bronx native ran a tiny restaurant, health food store and Internet café sandwiched between bodegas and fast food joints on Melrose Ave. near the Hub.

PeaceLove Café hosted live jazz and poetry slams, and served tasty sweet potato pie. But the cafe closed last August because David could no longer make rent.

"That type of business in the Bronx needs a lot of support," said David, who will think about applying for the Kelly St. space. "Sometimes a feel-good business makes less money, but it does a lot for the community."

Kelly Street Green is the cherry atop a $16 million residential overhaul that began in January.

Workforce Housing Advisors, Monadnock Construction and Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, a nonprofit, are rebuilding 916, 920, 924, 928 and 935 Kelly St., some of the worst slums in the borough.

For years, tenants in the gritty walkups lived with broken windows, leaks, rats and roaches, and went without heat. The tenants are living elsewhere during the renovations but will keep their old rents when they move back.

The new business will replace a Chinese takeout restaurant, nail salon and discount store that all closed this past winter. To learn more, visit kellystgreen.com.






Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/development-group-announces-request-proposals-healthy-food-business-renovated-bronx-slums-article-1.1127767#ixzz22m0kTe2o