Bed-Stuy Gateway and the Fulton-Nostrand Revitalization Project

Fulton Street-Nostrand Avenue Business District Statistics

If you're anything like us here at BedStuyGateway, you often can't sleep at night because you are just dying to know how many hair/nail/beauty salons and stores exist on Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue. Well thanks to our friends over at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, we have these statistics on the Fulton Street-Nostrand Avenue business district that will finally allow us to put our curious minds to rest and have a good night's sleep.

We weren't surprised to see that "Hair/Nail/Beauty" establishments comprise over 17% of the storefronts: anyone who has taken a walk down Fulton Street knows that. We do wish that the 16% of the storefronts that are in the "Restaurants/Prepared Food" category were more of the full-service restaurant type rather than the take-out variety. For all of you restauranteurs out there, check out some of the vacant storefront listings we posted here.

The following data is current as of February 2006 and applies to the area of Fulton Street, from Bedford Avenue to Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Nostrand Avenue from Halsey Street to Atlantic Avenue.

• Number of occupied commercial storefronts: 289
• Number of vacant lots: 7
• Number of vacant, occupiable commercial storefronts: 29
• Commercial retail vacancy rate: 12.3%

The top six business categories with the largest market share in the business district:

1. "Hair/Nail/Beauty" (includes salons as well as beauty supply stores) - 17.1%
2. "Restaurants/Prepared Foods" (includes "full-service" as well as "take-out only") - 16.0%
3. "Other" - 8.9%
4. "Variety/Dollar Store" - 7.5%
5. "Mens&Womens Apparel/Shoes/Accessories" - 6.0%
6. "Women's Only Apparel" - 5.0%

GIS Shows a Historic Bed-Stuy Building Stock

From the Property Shark, via Curbed is this GIS Map of Bed-Stuy properties showing the year that structures in the neighborhood were built.  According to Curbed:

"Bed-Stuy has a much larger and denser collection of pre-1900 buildings than anywhere else in NYC, even larger than Park Slope, Harlem, or the West Village.

But I also notice that only a teeny portion (just a couple of
blocks) is protected by landmark designation. Compare this to the West
Village, which is protected practically in its entirety." 

The historic district that Curbed mentions is the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District, which primarily covers MacDonough Street from Tompkins Avenue to Lewis Avenue and MacDonough, Decatur, Bainbridge and Chauncey Streets between Lewis and Stuyvesant Avenues. It is indeed just a small portion of the huge swath of brownstone Bed-Stuy.

Link: Curbed: Shark Bites: Bed-Stuy Is Old.