DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — Too big, you fail.
The upcoming Dekalb Market Hall, a 31,000-square-foot space that will house some of the city's most distinctive local flavors in one central location when it opens in Fall 2016, plans to be a safe place for small businesses — so much so that if participating vendors get too big, they're out.
"We're really looking for people who are owner operated, who speak your language," said businesswoman and Brooklyn native Anna Castellani, managing partner of the Dekalb Market Hall.
"In fact, there's a clause which says you can't be here anymore when you get really big."
The idea comes from the minds behind San Francisco's Ferry Building Marketplace, Castellani said.
"They encouraged me to make sure there was something in [the contract] which says that if you get purchased by a multinational, you're no longer a tenant here," she said.
Castellani said the common occurence of independent food vendors getting snapped up by large corporate restaurants or chains has a rippling effect onto the customers.
"One of the main problems [Ferry] had was that they brought in all these great new companies, but some of them get so good that they get purchased by a larger restaurant," Castellani recounted.
"Suddenly, your great person is not so great anymore, and they turn it into a giant corporate animal ... where they're not doing what they used to with the space ... and the customer will feel it."
Castellani hopes that her 40 vendor-plus food hall, which sits at the lower level of the 1.8 million square feet City Point complex, will bring together an array of visitors from all ages and income brackets for authentic "food theater" in a city where rising rents tend to push locally-owned shops out. The hall will share a floor with two full-service restaurants and a new Trader Joe's.
"A lot of people are getting priced out of their venues, so we’re providing space for a lot of stuff that has been displaced," Castellani said.
Bill Fletcher, who owns Fletcher's Brooklyn Barbecue in Gowanus and is one of Dekalb Market Hall's confirmed vendors, buys Castellani's vision.
"In the city now, you see major national brands showing up everywhere, and a lot of independent shops not being able to survive," Fletcher, 41, said.
"She's basically trying to stop that from happening, and I really appreciate that."
Discounted base rents in the food hall are as low as $3,750 a month per stall for the first two years, which to Fletcher makes establishing a second barbecue outfit there all the more appealing.
"It takes a crazy amount of money to open and maintain a restaurant in the city," Fletcher said. "Financially speaking, this is a pretty viable way to open up another location."
Castellani, who opened and owns the Foragers markets, restaurant and wine shop in DUMBO and Chelsea, has been involved in bringing this project to life for nearly a decade, when development firm Washington Square Partners approached her about opening a food space in the area.
"They looked around I think, and they came back to me because ... I grew up down here and I know the neighborhood well, and the changing demographics," Castellani said.
"My job is kind of to create a really fun environment where if you’ve got an afternoon in Brooklyn, you can taste a whole lot of New York food. That’s really what we’re trying to do."
