The plans are coming together quickly now that the lease is signed but are still quite fluid as I line up contractors and my architect does his magic. Some things we already know and I am happy to share with you.

• Most of the fixtures from the 8th Avenue store will be moving with us, so the space will feel very much like our current home. The plan is to salvage and reuse as much as possible from the current space. The bookcases, the jewelry table, the library ladders, most of the trees, and the lit tables from downstairs will all be making the move.
• The spa area will be dramatically improved, with a full bathroom with a shower attached to the treatment room. This will enable us to increase our spa menu to include mud treatments and scrubs of various sorts. I have already hired several new massage therapists, male and female, and I think the spa is one of the areas of Arcadia that will show the most growth in the new space. Of course, Hatsumi and Rohma are joining us in the new space and are both very excited about the move.
• Store hours will be somewhat different, to match our neighbors’ hours and to create a bit more time in my personal life. We expect to be closed every Monday, but to open periodically on Monday evenings for special events and fundraisers, which I hope to start doing far more regularly.
• I plan on dramatically increasing the watch selection in response to customer demand, but in general, our mix of products will not change much. I expect to continue my gradual tightening of focus to exclusively sustainable, local, fair trade and recycled products from around the world and around the corner that Arcadia has become so well known for.
• The new version of the website is quickly getting better and better and in our new space we will be better equipped to make the site as sophisticated and fun as I have always imagined it could be. Expect weekly changes on the site with new features and more information being added constantly.

In the hectic weeks ahead, I will update you again as we start this newest chapter in Arcadia’s life. I look forward to sharing it with you!
Jay

I hate moving. I have moved only twice in my life personally, and I really thought that once Arcadia moved from it’s original home on 19th Street to it’s current location on 8th Avenue, I would not have to think about moving for many years to come.

Unfortunately, a combination of several factors has made another move to our newest location at 249 West 23rd Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues, necessary for the continued survival of Arcadia.

A little known fact of commercial real estate in NYC is that in most cases, the commercial tenants on the ground floor of rental buildings typically pay the real estate tax for the landlord.

For instance, at our current location, Arcadia pays 50% of the real estate taxes for the entire building, with the other two commercial tenants paying the remaining 50%. Problems arise when the tax bill is reassessed, which has happened repeatedly in the last 5 years.

Because Arcadia is not actually the owner of the building I have no standing to appeal the tax assessment with the city. Because the landlord is not paying the taxes, they have no particular interest in appealing that tax assessment - it’s expensive, complicated, and you are never assured a positive result. This is especially true in a building like our current one on 8th Avenue, where there is a large rent roll which is used by the city to calculate the tax assessment. The more rent collected by the landlord, the more taxes are due - from Arcadia, not the landlord.

Our real estate tax bill has gone from $17,000 per year in 2007 to $56,000 in 2011, even though those years also include the worst recession since the Great Depression, a recession that while technically is over has barely improved the realities on the ground.

To be fair to our current landlord, we did renegotiate the lease last summer for a significant rent reduction, but the bottom line is that the real estate taxes just keep going higher and higher and those must be paid. This is an all too common problem, and I believe it is the real reason why independent retailers throughout NYC are closing.

Real estate taxes in NYC have gone up across the board, but for residential rental buildings with commercial tenants, they have truly skyrocketed, precisely because the people who actually have to pay the taxes have no legal right to appeal them, while the landlords figure they can always find another tenant.

Every commercial lease always includes the real estate taxes as part of the base rent in the first year; the tenants pay whatever the increase is only in subsequent years. This is literally a black box type situation though, since the business has no way to know, even based on past years’ tax bills, how the taxes high the taxes will go up in subsequent years. I don’t know this for a fact, but I would bet my bottom dollar that if you compare the rate of small business closings in NYC to the rate of real estate tax increases, you will find a direct correlation between the two. In years where the taxes stayed the same or increased moderately, small businesses thrive. In years where they jump by 15-20%, small businesses close all over town, all at once, especially during a recession where cash flow simply can’t keep up with skyrocketing tax bills.

Follow this theoretical example and you will instantly understand the problem. Assume a building has a real estate tax of $100,000 per year; not uncommon at all.

• Year 1: When a new commercial tenant moves in, the tenant pays no tax in the first year because it is included in the base rent. If the tenant occupies 50% of the building the tenant pays 50% of the tax increases in future years.
• Year 2: The tax is increased to $115,000 (a 15% increase), the tenant pays $7,500 (which is half of the increase), typically payable in two payments - half in January, half in July.
• Year 3: Taxes are increased another 15% on the building, to $132,500, which means the tenant’s yearly tax bill has now more than doubled, to $16,250.
• Year 4: With another 15% increase, the building tax bill is now $152,087.50, so the tenant’s tax bill is now  $26,043.75.
• Year 5: After another 15% increase from the city, the tax bill is now $174,900.63, with the tenant now paying almost 500% more than the second year of the lease, owing $37,450.32.

How many small businesses can afford that rate of increase, even in the best of economies? Remember that typical commercial leases also include a 3-4% increase in the base rent per year as well. Simply put, few businesses can.

So how do some businesses survive and thrive when others don’t? That was what I was asking myself this fall when I started renegotiating with the landlord once more. What I found out is the dirty little secret of commercial real estate. Large corporations have teams of lawyers who negotiate caps on taxes or even force the landlords to pay them themselves. I was told by two different commercial brokers that banks and chain stores simply never pay those sorts of taxes; if the landlords refuse to pay them, the big tenants go somewhere else.

Small independent retailers rarely have that sort of legal firepower or insider knowledge; we are typically presented with a lease and told, “take it or leave it”. I suspect that small businesses that have survived for many years in the same location typically have landlords that pay their own real estate taxes or work out a maximum cap on increases with their tenants, valuing a good tenant over making the very last possible penny from their buildings. Such landlords are hard to find, unfortunately.

So what about our new space? What will be different this time? Several key differences.

1. Chelsea Gardens, our new landlord, is a co-op, which means that real estate taxes are paid by each and every owner of the co-op. Arcadia pays only 2% of the total real estate tax bill for the building.
2. Because Chelsea Gardens pays the lion’s share of the real estate taxes, they fight reassessments and keep increases to a minimum, which will protect Arcadia in the years ahead.
3. I asked for and got a reasonable cap on Arcadia’s share of the real estate taxes so that if the tax bill were to spike in any one year, the co-op would absorb any increase beyond that cap. Our tax bill will still increase, but it should stay manageable and not become a “day of reckoning” type bill.

Thanks in large part go to the board members of Chelsea Gardens, many of whom are customers at Arcadia and people I have known for many, many years, who were understanding of the special circumstances involved and appreciated the unique place Arcadia has in the Chelsea community.

Special thanks go to Bill Candiloros, Esq., who almost singlehandedly created the maneuvering room for Arcadia to exit its current location and move into its new home. I am very grateful for the support and continuing patronage of Arcadia by the Chelsea community and look forward to many good years ahead at our new location at Chelsea Gardens.

After five years in our current location, our lease was coming due and the negotiations did not work out so Arcadia is moving to a new home two blocks away at 249 West 23rd Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues, next door to Ports Coffee and Pet Central. We hope to begin the process of moving by the second week of January and reopen in our new home by first week of February.

Of course, it’s much easier to sell our inventory than to move it, so everything at Arcadia over $10 is now 40% off the regular price.

That means 40% off our best selling products like Dr. Hauschka Skin Care, Votivo Candles, our original art, even our jewelry selection. RUN, don’t walk, to the store or to our website and start shopping now before we are sold out!

We introduced these handmade eggs for Easter and now they are back for the Christmas holidays.

We have dozens of designs in dozens of colors.

Buy them by the dozen! $9.95 each.

Check out all our Christmas items here!

Friends of New York! New Yorkers! This is the first year the MTA has licensed its subway line logos as Christmas ornaments — with your regular commutes in their regular colors dangling on the trees at Arcadia.

The A, C, and E blue lines. The 1, 2 and 3 red lines. The 3, 4 and 5 green lines. We have all the lines.

Can you name the currently under construction Second Avenue line? It’s the T line in a lighter blue. We have that, too.

Arcadia and the MTA’s Transit Museum are the only places in NYC to buy them.

Check out all our Christmas items by clicking here!

Made with real goose and duck eggs, these hand-crafted eggs are our best sellers at Arcadia.

We have the 12 Days of Christmas (well, the first four anyway), along with Winter themes and Fairy Tale themes.

Check out the Princess and the Pea! Or Rapunzel! Check out the LED snowfakes!

The wintery tree is back-lit for a night scene AND a day scene.

Absolutely beautiful in design and execution. Collectors items and fantastic gifts.

Priced between $72.95 to $92.95.

Check out all our Christmas items online!

Arcadia is New York’s largest sustainable and fair trade gift retailer — so we have two of our trees dedicated to fair trade gifts from Kenya, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Peru, Bolivia and Honduras and other developing countries.

These are ornaments that celebrate the season and provide great benefits to communities, artisans in developing countries and their families.

Come by and buy! Santas, angels, stars and a whole array of fun and fair trade ornaments that have great stories of compassion. Tis the season, right??

See all our Christmas items here!

Come to our store in Chelsea to see our New York tree — all the subway lines as ornaments, along with cabs, Grand Central Station and more!  We’re in a New York state of mind this holiday season. See all our Christmas items here!

Gift-giving comes early at Arcadia with a new holiday-season candle promotion.

• Trapp White Fir
• Trapp Winter Air

Regularly $24.95 each.

BUT!! If you buy four, you will get a fifth free — all for $100. That’s a 20% discount.

Only holiday fragrances. While supplies last. Online at www.arcadianyc.com and in the store.

See all our Christmas items here!

We’re finished with our annual Halloween trick or treat fun with the neighborhood kids (and more than a few adults, too!) and setting up for our biggest sale of the year here at Arcadia. As always, EVERYTHING in the store, on our website and at the spa is at their lowest prices of the year. For those of you who wait all year long for this sale, your time has come. For those of you who have just found us, well, lucky you!

Candles on sale? check. Dr. Hauschka products? yup. Wafels & Dinges? Really? you betcha. First time ever, by special permission from Thomas, the High King of Wafels himself. So run, don’t walk, to the store or our website and place your orders now. Everything is 10-40% off marked price. Stock up for the holidays, go crazy, make sure the next time you get trapped at home for a snowstorm you have a bag of spekuloos cookies, spekuloos spread, scented candles and enough bath product to soak in for a week. Who knows, you may not even notice when the power goes back on!

For web orders, just use discount code “anniversary sale” when checking out, and your discount will be automatically applied before shipping and handling.