High Rents, No Parking
What's a name worth? If the name is Greenwich, more than $100 a square foot.
This leafy old town along Connecticut's Gold Coast has long been exclusive. It took a lengthy court battle, after all, to open up access to its public beaches to the, well, public. But these days even the rich and powerful are experiencing the backbite of prosperity. The trouble is apparent to anyone willing to disembark from the safety and quiet of a yacht.
While Greenwich has long been the bedroom community of hedge-fund magnates, the firms themselves are increasingly seeking to relocate here. This trend has been a boon for both Greenwich and Connecticut--and their tax bases. But the growth of Hedge Fund Row into Wall Street East may be too much of a good thing.
Priced out. Other businesses are being crowded out. Rush-hour traffic is a nightmare. And parking? Forget about it. "People say, 'Gee, I'd love to have your issues,' " says Mary Ann Morrison, president of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce, admitting that an empty business district and a high unemployment rate would certainly be worse. "But employees can't afford to live in Greenwich anymore," she adds. Some businesses are paying a cost-of-living differential just to get workers to battle the traffic into town.
And many workers won't make the commute for any price, say business owners on fashionable Greenwich Avenue, where teenage girls casually swing $1,200 Chanel purses and luxury autos jockey for parking under the watchful eye of a police officer at each intersection.
A few businesses tied to the exclusive clientele of the town have tried to compensate for the rush-hour crush by changing store hours, so their employees can arrive in town early enough to find a parking space and leave before getting stuck in the afternoon crawl. But how early can you open and close and still capture customers?
The less well-heeled shoppers in town are also in a complaining mood. "I can't afford to shop here anymore," says Carl White, adding he recently saw a $2,000 sweater being pitched as a Christmas present. "The character of the town has changed," he says.
And it's not just the avenue. A group of investors has turned an old boat-dock motel into a new luxury lodging, where guests pay $350 and up for rooms with a view of Interstate 95; prices are much higher if you want to see the harbor, where yachts dock for dinner and drinks.
The movement of hedge funds and other financial firms has helped James McArdle Jr.'s family florist business bloom. But McArdle, 64, a lifelong resident of Greenwich, remembers when Woolworth's beckoned from Main Street and Electrolux was one of the biggest employers in town. "I miss the slower pace," he says. "It was a quiet town, a New England town."
So far, Greenwich's rising rents, insufferable traffic, and changing character haven't caused hedge funds to slow their assault. Already, the funds and the firms that support their trades take up over 60 percent of the available commercial space in town. And real-estate agents say they continue to seek more space.
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