Connecticut Muffin coming to Nostrand Ave. in Crown Heights

According to their own website, Conneticut Muffin is not a franchise and is privately owned.

I had a nice long chat with the 2 brothers. Seems like tomorrow is the day! They will be baking on the premises, and the inside is spectacular!!!! Old repurposed wood panels the walls and there is a large seating area. There will be food - not just muffins, and salads and soups. This will be a great place for the neighborhood. By the way, I notice more and more hair places closing down and their spaces are for rent. CT Muffin guys hinted that the closed Millie from Head to toe place might become a Beer garden. - I dont know whether to be happy or sad since that is on my block. Could this be the beginning of something big? Hurray!

Franklin is almost completely rented up, so it is not merely an issue of rent but also availability.

Amazing! I am so thrilled - I will be spending a lot of time there. I cannot wait for the weekend to hang out there. Such a much needed addition to the area.

Tsarina, I checked Everyblock today and came across this:

Confirmation to the beer garden rumor?

Ready or not, here change comes again?

DNA.info wrote:

CROWN HEIGHTS — Go east, young man!

For nearly a decade, eastward expansion has been the hallmark of Brooklyn's chattering classes: artists moved from Williamsburg to Bushwick, young families from Park Slope to Prospect Heights, students from Clinton Hill to Bedford-Stuyvesant.

So too in Crown Heights, which has seen an influx of new residents (and a significant exodus of old ones) in the past five years. As Franklin Avenue storefronts fill up or turn over and rental prices on adjacent blocks continue to rise, more and more residents are again looking east for the next big thing — and they're looking for it on Nostrand Avenue.

“Nostrand is undergoing a gradual upgrade in retail offerings, and it’s a reflection of an influx of people, both condo buyers and renters that can sustain businesses that formerly people didn’t think were going to work there," said Michael Guerra, executive vice president and managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Along the avenue, as in much of Crown Heights, “access to transport and cultural monuments are as convenient as they are in Park Slope.” The commercial corridor — fed by the Long Island Rail Road and the A and C subway linest and by the 3 train to the south — already has among the lowest commercial vacancy rates in Crown Heights.

Many community members were overjoyed at the long-awaited opening of Connecticut Muffin on the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Bergen Street last Monday, saying it heralded a new era in development for the area.

But while much has been made of the move, the bakery itself was the product of a years-long courtship by city officials, and many of the same sorts of establishments — the kind that boast reclaimed wood and antler chandeliers — could face an uphill battle in their efforts to open on the avenue.

"I've been looking around in Brooklyn for many months for places to open," said Mitch Polo, owner of Nostrand Avenue Pub, a bar with ambitions to open virtually across the street from Connecticut Muffin. "People that live within one or two blocks from Bedford or New York or Brooklyn Avenues should have a place to go that's closer than Franklin."

In theory, Community Board 8 agrees — after all, bars and restaurants like Nostrand Avenue Pub have been the engine behind much of the area's recent economic growth. But Polo said his nascent business has already hit a snag with its liquor license, which the board insists should limit his hours to 3 a.m. on weekends.

"We've heard from residents in our neighborhood wanting earlier closing times," Economic Development Committee chair Atim Oton told Polo at last Thursday's community board meeting. "They are property owners who invest in their properties and need to go to work in the morning."

The move comes as part of a broader push. Investment in the neighborhood's attractive housing stock has helped raise the avenue's profile among newcomers. But Polo said the board's push toward earlier hours runs counter to his interests.

"The limited hours would make it virtually impossible for me to compete," Polo said.

Borough President Marty Markowitz personally wrote to the board to express his support for a 4 a.m. closing.

"The current location, which is blighted by broken windows and garbage in the backyard, will be replaced by an upscale establishment that will provide jobs for local residents as well as snacks and appetizers for its patrons," Markowitz wrote. "However, the doors of this local business can remain open only if it is allowed to compete fairly with other local liquor establishments."

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121016/crown-heights/with-all-eyes-on-nostrand-avenue-crown-heights-mulls-its-next-move

While the name "Nostrand Avenue Pub" is descriptive, it doesn't get many points for creativity.

The Nostrand Pub is highlighted in an article about some CB8 feeling there are too many bars.

The first item of the Oct. 1 meeting, an application from investors opening a pub on Nostrand Avenue, quickly became a contentious negotiation. The group requested a 4 a.m. closing time, but the committee rejected the request, with one member saying his colleagues needed to “mitigate the development trends in our neighborhood.” The committee offered the standard compromise hours they have developed over the past year: 1 a.m. on weeknights and 2 a.m. on weekends.

Mitch Polo, one of the investors, shook his head in frustration as he pressed for the later hours he said his business model required. Committee members pushed back with worries about noise, but Polo, repeatedly whispering to his lawyer, refused to yield.

After several breaks for consultation and several more hours of stalemate, neither side had budged. The committee voted to support the application, but would only consent to a 3 a.m. weekend closing. Polo insisted he would press for 4 a.m. at the liquor authority despite the committee’s conditions.

Barbara Brown-Allen, a local pro-business activist, was one of three attendees to speak in favor of the project. She approved of Polo’s defiant stance and blasted the committee’s decision as shortsighted. “Any fool would know that in the economical development in any up-and-coming neighborhood, the bars come first,” she thundered.

The volume of new applications has risen from one or two per month in past years to as many as 10 per month in 2012, prompting the formation of the new liquor licensing committee.

http://www.bkbureau.org/bar-push-meets-resistance-crown-heights

While gentrification is a constant, never ending process, I believe Nostrand's "change" will take place in a much different manner than Franklin's, in large part because there is already a thriving business community there.

I.E. I believe it will take a longer for the present businesses on Nostrand to get priced out, flip, etc. than it did on Franklin, because Franklin had a large % of its storefronts empty or barely open, and the avenue was relatively devoid of foot traffic when the "change" arrived.

A big impetuous for Franklin was a influx of market rate renters (aka young, educated white people) as a result of the conversion of the Jewish Hospital complex. As a result of Nostrand not having such a large development and the other differences I mention, I suspect Nostrand's change will be more gradual in nature.

...but, yup, change is coming.