NWS cafe pasta
The once popular Italian restaurant has remained bordered up and scrawled with graffiti since fire destroyed the building in 2007. (Staten Island Advance/Irving Silverstein)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Perhaps the biggest blight on a Dongan Hills strip of shuttered storefronts, the building that housed the former Cafe Pasta restaurant on Hylan Boulevard may soon become the site of a new business.
The once popular Italian restaurant has remained bordered up and scrawled with graffiti since fire destroyed the building in 2007.
The 3,576-square-foot restaurant now has a sign stating it's "available for lease."
When reached by the Advance, John Oliveri, a broker with the New Springville-based STL Realty, refused to comment about the state of the structure.
According to online real estate listings, the 13,000 square foot property at 1400 Hylan Boulevard, which includes a parking lot, has a rental rate of $260,000 per year.
Some say the property hasn't been leased in the last eight years due to a dispute in housing court between the landlord and former tenant.
NOT THE ONLY EYESORE
There are several other vacant storefronts along the once bustling Hylan Boulevard commercial strip, including a former Rite-Aid, which closed last year.
And industry professionals say the underlying cause is the high price of commercial rent along major thoroughfares in the borough
Rents along major retail strips, such as Hylan Boulevard, Forest Avenue and Victory Boulevard, are getting increasingly high. For example, a 1,500-square-foot storefront could be as much as $6,000 rent per month, said Claire Bisignano Chesnoff, broker/owner of the New Dorp-based Claire Properties.
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