South Shore growing into the place to shop
There was a time when builder Guido Passarelli referred to his Veterans Road West property as “nanny goat” country, a desolate scrub overlooking the West Shore Expressway where, yes, goats could once be spotted.
Today, Passarelli is finishing work on a 135,000-square-foot shopping center in former nanny goat country and he’s signed up national tenants such as Ethan Allen, Famous Footwear, Panera Bread, Payless ShoeSource and Ruby Tuesday. The center is expected to open by December, the developer said.
“There are more tenants coming,” he added during an interview last week in a work trailer at the site.
Passarelli’s Realtor is also in discussions with New York & Company, Bath & Body Works and Jos. A. Bank, the men’s clothing shop. His brick and glass storefronts sit across the street from Bricktown Centre, the nearly two-year-old shopping mall housing Target, Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond and a Christmas Tree Shops store.
The sprawling centers are transforming the once retail-deprived southern end of Staten Island into a commercial destination rivaling Richmond and Forest avenues. Panera Bread, for example, is a publicly traded bakery/cafe company with 1,100 stores in 40 states. Last year, the company generated $2 billion in revenue. The Island’s only other Panera Bread is located behind the Staten Island Mall in New Springville.
But the chain-store invasion is also creating a divide — a kind of tale of two towns and two types of shopping on the southern end of the Island.
In the heart of Tottenville, a few boutique-style stores are persevering and even learning to work big-store anonymity to the little guy’s advantage.
“It’s not a surprise,” Linda Baran, president and CEO of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, said of chain store interest in the South Shore, which she believes is fueled by the area’s explosive growth and high disposable income.
