Volume 77 / Number 47 - April 23 - 29, 2008
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933

Mendez mediates on Met Food

By Lincoln Anderson

Councilmember Rosie Mendez says she hopes to help broker an agreement between Met Foodmarket and New York University under which the university will renew the Second Ave. supermarket’s lease.

Mendez held an initial meeting with the parties last Friday and will have a follow-up meeting next week.

“N.Y.U. initially told me they needed more space and were not going to renew the lease; this was two or three years ago,” Mendez said. “But now they want to renew. The last offer on the table is for a five-year lease, but commercial tenants always want at least an eight-to-10-year lease, if not a 15-year lease.

“We still have some work to do,” she continued. “But I’m going to put my energy into it and I’m hopeful that we can have an agreement that is acceptable to both sides. We’re trying to get this done before the lease expires at the end of the month and that we’ll have something to announce to the community.” Mendez said she found it helpful to consult her father on the subject of grocery leases since he used to run a bodega with his brother on Fifth Ave. in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

“That store put me through N.Y.U. and Rutgers Law School,” Mendez said proudly.