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A NYC based landlord and property owner is sacrificing profits in an attempt to support New York City’s economic recovery and help rescue local, independently owned businesses.
“We all love New York, and we all want New York to come back and be the big city we like, and we wanted to support it in one way or another,” said Eran Polack, CEO of HAP Investments.
Residents living in HAP Investments properties will receive rental credits to shop locally, HAP Investments, a New York-based international real estate investment and development company, announced Thursday.
“It’s a win win because it’s a good promotion for the local shops in our community, and it’s a good promotion for our tenants,” Polack said. Polack said he was tired of hearing people complain about seeing local stores close and would do anything to help fix it instead.
HAP will offer up to $ 1,000 in rental credits to more than 200 occupants of the building for shopping and dining locally.
Polack notified residents of the HAP building about the tenant discount program after seeing a leaflet from an independently owned business in East Harlem urging community members to shop locally.
“We have to help the smaller businesses in the city that are struggling, which did not have that many customers under COVID, and still have the hard times,” Polack said.
Of New York City’s 200,000 businesses, 98 percent are considered small and 89 percent very small. These companies provide job opportunities for more than half of the city’s private workforce, according to NYC Small Business First Report.
Since online shopping already hurt small businesses before the pandemic, the pandemic only exacerbated the problem.
Polack said the campaign will push tenants to find local stores that meet their needs, and even after the campaign is over, he said he hopes people will continue to shop at the local stores.
“If people have incentives to go out and shop in stores in their communities, then they might fall in love with one of those stores and keep buying from them,” Polack said. “I think it will benefit the city that our retail will be successful again and we will see more stores open.”
He also hopes other real estate developers will join the campaign to gain more influence, he said.
“It will benefit the city, the community and it will also benefit the real estate industry because retail is part of our industry; it is part of our business model, ”said Polack.