May not be best way to turnover of mom-and-pop grocers and fish markets into new restaurants!

RETIRADO DAQUI

Photographs by Robert Wright for The New York Times

« SCENIC SHAKE-UP Some residents believe the Smith Street area, Brooklyn’s equivalent of the West Village, is now changing into the bustle of the Lower East Side.

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The unpretentious little stretch of Smith Street, from Atlantic Avenue to Carroll Street, overlapping with Boerum Hill to the north and east, Cobble Hill to the west and Carroll Gardens to the south — some call it BoCoCa — seems to be evolving at a pace that is unparalleled, at least in Brooklyn, with a monthly turnover of mom-and-pop grocers and fish markets into new restaurants, shops and condos.

Despite the neighborhood’s predilection for remaining under the radar, compared with more-famous borough destinations like Park Slope or Williamsburg, the cost of opening a store along this stretch of Smith Street can now be twice as high as in those neighborhoods, said Faith Hope Consolo, chairwoman of the retail leasing and sales division of Prudential Douglas Elliman. Stores that rented for $50 to $75 a square foot earlier this year now are $100 or more, she said, “and by year end it will be closer to $125 to $135 per square foot.”

The week before Lucky Brand Jeans opened its whitewashed store, lined with photographs of rock stars like Jimi Hendrix, Trader Joe’s, the upscale supermarket, announced that it was taking over a former bank on the nearby corner of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street. This spring, at Smith and Wyckoff Streets, a dollar store that once enjoyed a thriving trade in beach towels bearing the Puerto Rican flag was replaced by a Starbucks. Last year saw the arrival of American Apparel (...)» IN THE NEW YORK TIMES - 26.07.07