Market Owner Wants to Be a Pioneer Again By Ronald Drenger Stepping over large chunks of metal, broken wall tiles, and heaps of unrecognizable debris, Adam Arici last month surveyed the ruins of his Amish Market store at 130 Cedar St., one block south of where the Twin Towers once stood. Little sunlight penetrated the boarded-up windows, the glass having been blown out by the force of a collapsing tower, so Arici used a flashlight to pick out the remains of what had been a sumptuous food market.   On the charred ceiling was a large melted metal light fixture; on the floor, flower boxes and 15-foot metal beams that had been blasted inside; on the shelves, packages of gnocchi, boxes of butter cookies and bottles of gourmet salad dressing, still neatly arranged but wrapped in a film of gray dust. Rotting food had been removed months before, but the stench lingered. Many owners might have walked away from such destruction and moved on. But not Arici. "I have to open this place up again," said the 37-year-old Turkish immigrant. "I never give up. I spent a lot of time and money, I spent two years building the business, and I deserve to come back." Arici will open a much smaller Amish Market at 17 Battery Place this month, but his heart is set on returning to Cedar Street. He may not get the chance, though. Arici claims that his landlord, William Goldstein, is trying to cancel his lease, which was supposed to run for 11 more years. "He said I have to clean everything out, or he’ll throw it out," Arici said. "I told him, I’ll move it all out, but I want to know that when the building is ready, I can move back in." According to Arici, just before Sept. 11, Goldstein was negotiating to sell the building to Club Quarters, a members-only hotel chain with a branch on William Street, and the market owner was on the verge of signing a deal to provide food for guests. Arici speculates that the landlord now wants to sell the building without the market’s lease. Goldstein declined to comment on the Amish Market’s future. As for his building, which is closed because of structural damage, he said, "There are no plans yet. We don’t know what’s going to happen." According to Zafer Akin, Arici’s lawyer, the owner can oust Arici only if he—or a buyer—tears down the building. If the structure is repaired, Zafer claims, the lease must be honored. Whatever his legal rights, Arici’s eagerness to return is hardly surprising. When he decided to open the Amish Market Downtown in the late 1990’s, he was a pioneer, going where other big food retailers feared to open. The area was then a fledgling residential district, with no major food market. "What we needed to turn the neighborhood [around the Financial District] into a 24-hour residential community were amenities," said Valerie Lewis, a vice president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, the business improvement district that played a key role in the Downtown revitalization effort. "What amenity was most important to people? A supermarket. We worked with residential property owners to convince large-scale grocery retailers to come Downtown, but no one bit." With the help of a five-year, $385,000 subsidy from the landlords and marketing by the Alliance, Arici and three partners took the plunge, opening the Amish Market in 1999. Arici co-owns two other Amish Markets in Manhattan and the 21,000-square-foot Zeytuna on William Street, as well as the new Battery Place store. But he insists that he can succeed again on Cedar Street if he’s allowed to resurrect the market. "I lost a lot of money here for a couple of years, but I was making money before 9/11," he said. "This area will come back strong—not right away, maybe, but in a couple of years. People are already coming back." But Arici said he feels let down by the city, and even the Alliance. "No one came and said, ‘How can we help you?’" Arici said. "I would like to help rebuild Downtown, but we need help." He estimates it would cost about $400,000 to fix the Cedar Street place, including $50,000 just to clean up. And he is quick to tick off an estimated $8 million in losses that he is unlikely to recoup, including a $1.5 million interior filled with imported fixtures and intricate metalwork, and lost retail and catering sales. He owes vendors $700,000 for destroyed goods and one of them is threatening to sue. "I don’t know what to tell them. I have no money to pay them." Arici said he also owes $3 million to his family, who run a farm in Turkey, which they loaned him for his Downtown business. "There’s a lot of pressure. Every day, people ask me, ‘Where’s my money?’" Arici said he needs about $1 million and that $80,000 he got from the city plus his insurance will cover only a fraction of his losses. The subsidy arranged by the Alliance, a little more than half of which had been paid, stopped after Sept. 11. Lewis said the Alliance would consider continuing it, but, she said, "he has to put his business plan in writing. The ball’s in his court." Arici insists he’ll try to do whatever it takes. "I can build up this place again," he said.