Seated at a table in Pizza & Pasta Delight’s small dining room at Southbridge Towers, Lucy Cabrero, a Tribeca resident, had just seen the owners’ petition (“We need your support for a lease”) and she was dismayed.

“I’ve been coming here for years,” she said. “They make the best pies, and the prices are great—not Tribeca prices. I was very sad to hear they might be closing.”

Cabrero joined her name to what the owners say are hundreds of signatures of support from customers who want their threatened business to continue.

Popular among locals for its pizza but also as a place for leisurely gathering, Pizza & Pasta is operating on a month-to-month lease and in danger of losing its spot in the Southbridge complex at Fulton and Gold Street. 

“I know this whole community,” said Michael Magliulo Jr., who was 17 when his father opened the pizzeria in 1979. “Why get rid of a store that everybody needs and everybody congregates at and knows each other? I think that’s very important to make a community.”

So far customers’ efforts have had success. Facing a groundswell of opposition from residents, the Southbridge Towers Board of Directors voted on Feb. 2 to scrap plans to boot the restaurant and replace it—and the soon-to-be-vacant Key Food store next to it—with what it was describing as a “high end wine and spirits” store.

That doesn’t mean Pizza & Pasta will get to stay.  With the next door Key Food relocating to a bigger space at 55 Fulton St. this spring, Southbridge needs to find a new tenant. The board is not convinced it will be able to do so without packaging it with the Pizza & Pasta space.

“One of the things that was told to us by brokers—and we interviewed four different brokers—was that while they would attempt to market the Key Food space as an individual space, it would be a difficult space to market alone,” Southbridge Board President Wally Dimson told a packed meeting of the board. “The more likely scenario would be that it would have to be marketed with Pizza & Pasta.”

In part, that is because the Key Food space has little visibility. It is set back from the sidewalk and hidden behind Delury Square Park while Pizza & Pasta, at the corner, is a more desirable location, Dimson said.

“We think that this is not going to be an easy space to rent,” Dimson said.

Right now, the financially-strapped middle-income co-op receives about $360,000 in combined annual rent between the two shops (the pizzeria pays $96,000.) The proposed liquor store would have brought in about $60,000 less, but it would have moved in right away and remain a guaranteed tenant for the next 15 years. In addition, Dimson said, the co-op would save up to $200,000 in brokers fees because they were approached directly by the liquor store.

“We are trying as best we can to bring in as much revenue was we can,” Dimson said.

More than 70 people turned out at the board meeting on Feb. 2. Although a few said they would favor any tenant that brought in the most money (and kept maintenance fees from rising for residents) many came to speak in opposition of the liquor store, and said they were dismayed about the potential loss of the pizzeria.

“Do I have a problem with a  liquor store there? Maybe not,” said Southbridge resident Joseph Morrone. “What I have a problem with is losing a commercial tenant that has been very good to our community.”

Pizza & Pasta is important to seniors on a fixed income, whose options for eating out are limited, residents say.

“It’s an icon,” said Southbridge resident Claudia Byrd, whose father used to take her to the eatery when she was a girl. “[The owner] caters to the elders. He will let them sit there with a cup of coffee or no coffee. I pictured myself getting old at the pizzeria, and the image I got was to be there in place of my father who has passed away.”

Some board members suggested keeping Pizza & Pasta by allowing the restaurant to expand into the adjoining Key Food space. But the owners say the customer demand doesn’t warrant it. If they were offered a new lease, however, they said they would be willing to renovate the tired-looking pizzeria. “It would enhance the building and the place next door,” Magliulo Jr. said.

“For two years we’ve been here as a month-to-month tenant, but I never really took any solid look at the situation, because I thought that they would come around and realize [we] are good people, decent people,” said Magliulo Sr., 75, a native of Naples, Italy, who after 32 years comes to the restaurant daily with his son. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

The father-and-son owners, who routinely greet regulars by name, said the support they are getting from their customers is making them hopeful that a new lease is in the offing.

“We need this place,” a police officer told the pair as he got up from a table and readied to go back to work. “It’s a real community place.”

 

COMMENTS? Write to tribeditor@tribecatrib.com

 

 

As treasurer of Southbridge Towers, I would like to thank you for your comprehensive and balanced presentation of the issues relating to the consideration that SBT had given to renting commercial space to a wine and spirits store.  However, what I take issue with is your writer’s statement that SBT is a “financially-strapped middle-income co-op.” While it is true that we exhibited an operating loss in both the current and previous fiscal years, we are budgeting operating profits for the 2012 to 2013 fiscal year. This turnaround is the result of projected increases in rental income and reductions in major expenditures.  These include:

•    The new Key Food supermarket, which will open shortly, will generate over $1M in annual rent.
•    A well-respected veterinarian will be opening his doors shortly and will provide a needed service to the neighborhood and income to SBT.
•    Lower electricity and gas expenses as a result of locking in lower unit prices.
•    Lower security costs resulting from the recent awarding of our security contract to a different firm. 
•    New Garage contract that pays SBT more rent over the term of the contract AND avoided the multimillion dollar renovation cost of a garage that was falling apart (the garage operator performed and paid for the work).

Normally a cooperative that is losing money from operations would have to raise maintenance to make up the shortfall – this would have resulted in a 15 to 20% increase. Fortunately Southbridge has a large reserve fund (exceeds $15M) and is able to weather this storm by borrowing from these reserves (to be repaid) and thus avoid an unnecessary maintenance increase that many of our cooperators cannot afford.

The bottom line is that Southbridge is a well-run cooperative by a Board that is able to balance the business side of the cooperative while providing a safe and well maintained facility and keeping maintenance at a reasonable level.

Ronald Guggenheim
Treasurer, Southbridge Towers, Inc.

 

 

I was happy to see the story regarding the current situation between Southbridge Towers and the pizza store located in Southbridge Towers for over thirty years.  Mike and his Dad have been fine tenants and excellent neighbors to Southbridge.  Key Food has been working on their new premises for months and it looks as though it will take several more months for it to be ready.  I do not know, and can not find out why Southbridge did not put a “for rent” sign up to try to rent the old Key Food space during this time.  Instead of brokers telling us we will have a “hard time” renting the space by itself without the pizza store, why didn’t we at least try to rent it alone during all this time?  Perhaps we would have gotten lucky.  It seems to me, that the same broker who could not rent the new Key Food space, has now been hired to rent the old Key Food space.  In the meantime, it is now going to cost us over $100,000.00 to get a new tenant, one whom we will really know nothing about, while maybe putting out a loyal, trustworthy tenant of many years.  I know we need money, but I think Southbridge has to review their “good neighbor” policy.

Karen Glasser

Southbridge Towers Shareholder