Gift eases crunch for retail center tenants

Grace Leong

Monday, Dec. 24, 2001 | 11:22 a.m.

The tenants of the Main Center, a small shopping area two blocks north of the Stratosphere hotel-casino, received an early holiday gift this year.

It came from their landlord, Leonard Block, who decided this year to help his six tenants -- whose business has slowed dramatically since Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rather than donate to charity, Block said he gave checks totalling $5,000 on Nov. 26 to the stores, some of whom have been tenants at the 30,000-square-foot center at 1510 South Main Street for more than a decade. Each tenant received a one-time check amounting to about half of their monthly rents, he said.

The tenants include Hispanic healthfoods store Su Salud Es Primero (Your Health is First), Tienda El Salvador, El-Y-Ella (His and Hers) beauty salon, Sal's Furniture, Sandy's Electronic Supply Inc. and Port of Subs.

"This is just a little gift on our part to give them a little relief from their problems. Rather than make a donation to charities, I'd rather give the money to our tenants who helped us to make a profit," Block said.

Block hopes this gesture will encourage other landlords to help out their tenants, and discourage his tenants from asking for rent reductions.

While Block said he intends to raise rents next year when his tenants' leases are due, he plans to raise rents by about 3 percent instead of the usual 5 percent.

"Typically, the rent increase is based on an inflation rate of about 5 percent. But I think inflation rates are around 3 percent now," he said. "But I know a lot of landlords are still charging a 5 percent increase and pocketing the difference."

The tenants are mostly pleasantly surprised and grateful for the unexpected bout of financial aid.

For tenants like Blanca Orellana, owner of Tienda El Salvador, which sells souvenirs from El Salvador, groceries and Latino CDs; and Adela Basquez, owner of El-Y-Ella, the $300 gift they each received will be used as rent relief or to pay bills or for holiday presents.

Sal's Furniture, the largest tenant, said it lost 80 percent of its business since the attacks.

Owner Sal Ayala said he's grateful for the $2,000 gift, but he also hopes Block will also consider freezing rental rates.

"This could be a tax write-off for him or maybe he wants to keep us as his tenants. He's a very humane landlord. Anything helps at this stage," Ayala said.

"But during this recession, I also wish he would freeze our rents and once things are different, maybe, he can increase our rents," he said. "We've been here five years and this is the worst year for us. It's been bad all year but after Sept. 11, things just died. For September and October, we went for weeks without sales."

Ayala said visitor traffic volumes have now dwindled to about five to 20 customers a day from about 50 before the attacks and that many of these potential customers have "bad credit, no job, no cash."

Ayala said the year began badly for him when the store didn't receive a 30 percent increase in sales it typically makes during March and April after its customers receive their tax refunds.

"Maybe a lot of people didn't get as much refund as they hoped for. Even the additional tax refund of $300 to $600 that came later in the year didn't help much," he said. "We were hoping things would pick up in September, which is typically when our sales get better as people come back from vacation and after budgeting for school supplies, are thinking about Christmas purchases. But then Sept. 11 happened."

With the exception of the beauty salon, all five other stores have kept their regular opening hours. El-Y-Ella temporarily cut its hours to 10:30 a.m. through 6 p.m. from 10 a.m. through 8 p.m. because of slower business since the attacks, Basquez said.

Merchants at Sandy's Electronics, which sells industrial electronics components, declined to reveal the size of its refunds, but said it was a nice gesture.

"The gifts would probably help the stores next door and Sal's Furniture more. If you get laid off from your job, you're not going to buy a $2,000 sofa. Buying $35 worth of electronics would probably be easier," said Jim Wegg, Sandy's manager.

Richard Farrah, Sandy's general manager, agreed.

"Getting the check was certainly unusual. But we're living in unusual times. Since Sept. 11, our business has dropped at least 25 percent. Although our visitor volume has picked up tremendously, our dollar-sales per customer is down dramatically. Things are tight and people are buying necessities rather than impulse items."