BPC Shops and Eateries: What’s Opening When

To the delight of residents and workers, many Battery Park City restaurants and stores have reopened, but others remain shuttered. The Embassy Suites hotel complex, once the retail anchor of the north neighborhood with a 16-screen movie theater and six restaurants, remains almost empty. Here’s what’s happening at the shops in that complex and a few other downtown stores, based on interviews conducted last month.

United Artists movie theater
Neil Pinsker, a spokesman at UA’s Denver headquarters, said the company was aiming for May 5. "We’re still working with the insurance company and the landlord, we need to go in and clean up, and we have to work through some legal issues," he said. "Physically, I don’t think March is possible." UA had not yet decided how many of its 16 screens would reopen, he said.

The theater may be a venue for the Tribeca Film Festival in May, but UA and Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Productions, the festival’s organizer, said the deal wasn’t finalized.

Embassy Suites Hotel
The hotel, which is owned jointly by Hilton International and Forest City Ratner, the developer of 102 South End Ave., should open in late April or early May, said a Forest City Ratner spokeswoman. She said cleaning of the hotel, which was contaminated with asbestos-laden dust, would start soon.

PacRim
This Asian restaurant was the first shop at the complex to reopen, on Jan. 25. Its owner has four other restaurants—Wave, Yangtze, Cove Bistro and Zen Chinese Cuisine—in southern BPC, all of which are open. "I don’t think there’s enough business there yet to make a profit, but we’re trying to help the people working and living there," said Sonia Mim, a manager at the corporate office.

Lili’s Noodle Shop
They plan to reopen in March or April, according to the general manager, Victor Tu. "We’re still cleaning, and then there are a lot of repairs," including a damaged air conditioning unit and leaking water pipes, he said.

Applebee’s and Chevy’s
Zane Tankle, chairman of the Harrison, N.Y.-based Apple Metro, Inc., which owns the franchise restaurants, said they may not reopen until the end of the year, depending on how quickly foot traffic returns. The restaurants cannot do business, he said, until West Street and other roads reopen, public transportation improves, more workers return to surrounding office buildings, and the bubble-like structure where Ground Zero workers wash up and eat, on the lot between West Street and 102 North End Avenue, is removed: "Then we can see what free access translates to in terms of people."

The Mayor’s office and the Battery Park City Authority had urged him to reopen, but that would be "suicidal," he said. "We have perishable food, unlike with retail, where you can sell your merchandise tomorrow. And we’re an impulse buy. People don’t make reservations to come here. We seat 400 in Chevy’s, 250 in Applebee’s, and we need the foot traffic."

Pick A Bagel
The bagel place plans to reopen on March 1, according to its manager, Chaim Weiss. "If we can open earlier, we might do it, but that's the target date," he said.

Kinko’s
Scheduled to reopen on Feb. 1, the store will no longer be open 24 hours. New hours are Mon. to Fri., 8 a.m.–6 p.m. "It will be a skeleton crew," said an assistant manager at another store who helped prepare the BPC store to reopen.

New York Sports Club
The club will probably open in May, with a reduced schedule and fewer classes, said manager Robert Carey. "We’re all set to go," he said. "We’ve decontaminated and we have all the required certificates. It’s about access and availability. We have to know that we’ll have business and support for the club." NYSC was previously paid by the hotel, whose guests had free use of the club.

Chase Bank
The bank on South End Avenue will reopen on Feb. 6, according to a company spokeswoman. She said that Chase had been "waiting for a green light from a communications and security perspective."

The Amish Market
Its 130 Cedar St. location was damaged, but the market will reopen at 17 Battery Place in April, according to owner Adam Arici, who also runs Zeytuna on Maiden Lane. He wants to return to Cedar Street, but said that his landlord is trying to break his lease and sell the building.

Century 21
A spokeswoman said that the store, at 22 Cortlandt St., will reopen in mid-February. In addition to extensive cleaning, she said, the store had to repair telephone and electrical lines, steam pipes and numerous windows that were blown out, although the building suffered no structural damage; they also had to work through "the red tape with the insurance companies."