By Jacky Gerzema
Carmella Ragucci, co-owner of the Baldwin Shopping Center's Grand Unisex Salon, said that the vacant stores have affected every business in the center. The large anchor stores at both ends of the shopping center are vacant, with the Pergament's going bankrupt all pulling out in March 2001. Four other smaller stores are also vacant.
With less traffic, Ragucci believes she has lost customers and is contemplating filing a lawsuit against the owners, Rosen and Associates Management Corp., for failing to bring in businesses and for prohibiting her from ending a two-year lease she signed last July. Ragucci's lawyer was not available for comment at press time.
Ragucci signed a two-year extension to her lease in July 2001, but requested a dissolution of her lease in February.
She contends that the empty spaces attract vandals and robbers. A fire deemed to be arson erupted in a vacant store in November of last year.
Ragucci also says that a uniformed security guard that was promised by the landlord is never there, the majority of the exterior walkway lights do not work and dead birds and rodents are clearly visible in some vacant stores, one of which she photographed.
In response to Ragucci's request to break her lease, Florence Rosen wrote a letter on Feb. 27 refuting many of Ragucci's arguments.
"The lights are working, you can clearly see that even from your photos," Rosen wrote.
She added that the dead bird in one of the empty stores was cleaned up, and that cleaning services come on a daily basis to sweep the parking lot and empty the trash bins. A security guard is on duty from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., wrote Rosen.
"We cannot just forgive the lease and cancel it," Rosen wrote. "However, if you still want to close and have a proposal for us to consider regarding buying out the lease, please contact me."
Florence Rosen, when contacted by the Herald for this story, said, "I have no comment to make about that." David Rosen did not return calls.
Ragucci said that the new lease prohibits store owners from leaving before the lease date ends but allows the store managers to give 90 days notice to vacate the store if they decide to "rebuild or resell."
There were rumors that the CVS drug store was going to vacate, Ragucci said, and she wrote this in her letter to Florence Rosen, arguing that the vacation of CVS would further harm business. Rosen replied and wrote that her company has "every reason to believe CVS is not vacating."
While CVS will not be vacating in the immediate future, Baldwin's CVS store manager Derek Scott said that the store will be relocating to the end of the shopping center to the site of the former Woolworth's in less than a year.
"It's already been approved and plans have been set," Scott said. "We will relocate to the right end and separate into a freestanding store. The plan is for next February through March. After we move and separate, we will no longer be under these landlords [Rosen and Associates]."
Scott also called the Baldwin Shopping Center is a "disgrace."
"I've been here for about a year and a half, and these vacancies still haven't been filled, and more stores have closed. I'm not going to lie, I'm still doing decent sales. But if this shopping center was filled, and there were a wider variety of stores, I think we could be doing a lot better," said Scott.
Other Baldwin residents and store employees agree that the lack of business in the Baldwin Shopping Center affects not only their own stores, but customers as well.
"I've only been here for a month, but those stores should be filled," said a Payless employee who did not want to reveal her name. "I've already heard complaints from customers. It's unattractive and people don't want to shop here."
Baldwin Chamber of Commerce member Barbara Fullerton said that the Chamber has contacted David Rosen and his mother Florence, but to no avail.
"We have tried repeatedly to talk with David Rosen about getting businesses in there," she said. "They just won't work with us."
