2nd Idea Emerges To Fill Vacant Spaces

A year after the city started an experiment in filling downtown storefronts, it’s launching a new competitor/ collaborator of sorts — who’s also a tenant, and who aims to put herself out of business.

The tenant is Danyel Aversenti. She rents a vacant storefront — actually, has it for free, for three months — at 100 Crown St. She shares the former bank space (complete with vault) with a second business, Zeb and Ted Esselstyn’s city-tree-salvaging operation called City Bench.

The businesses get to operate for free for three months as a way to launch their operations, and bring life to otherwise dormant street-front property. They do so under a city program called Project Storefronts, which negotiates with landlords to give that three-month free shot to enterpreneurs and artists. Last year, Project Storefronts brought four ventures into empty spaces: a craft cooperative, a ​“curated bookstore,” a pop-up gallery, and a co-working cooperative. The last, called the Grove, has become a free-standing shared workspace. This year, project storefronts helped launch the New Haven Free Store.

Project Storefronts will this week celebrate the beginning of its second year. It plans to mark the anniversary with a champagne toast Tuesday afternoon at the space Aversenti and the Esselstyns current occupy at 100 Crown.

Like Project Storefronts, Aversenti’s business aims to fill empty spaces. She calls her business Our Empty Space. She’s set herself up as a middleman between property owners with vacant retail spaces and people looking for a venue for events like seminars, meetings, parties, and weddings.

But unlike the city program, Aversenti aims to make money filling spaces — and she aims to do so until she puts herself out of business by helping to make New Haven a more vibrant area without vacant spaces. ​“I want to be around until there are no more empty storefronts to fill,” she said. ​“I hope that shows how much I love New Haven.”

Our Empty Space hit upon some early success by immediately landing a major client — Apple. The computer superpower was looking for a place to hold job interviews for its soon-to-open store on Broadway. Aversenti provided the space at 100 Crown St.

SeeClickAdvice: You Do It

She stocked it with rental furniture and a fridge full of refreshments, everything a job interview needs. Apple has told her it plans to continue working with her in the fall when its begins training new employees.

Aversenti, currently has only one other space she’s working with. She declined to say where it is, as the final details are still being worked out.

People have used Our Empty Space so far to hold seminars, meetings, and receptions. She has a birthday party lined up for October, and a wedding for December.

Aversenti, who’s 30 and from New Jersey, ended up in New Haven about three years ago to help open the Study at Yale hotel on Chapel Street, where she was the catering sales manager. Everyday as she walked to work from her home in East Rock, she passed by 15 vacant storefronts.

The streets looked ​“desolate,” she said. ​“I saw a real need for New Haven.”

One day she was walking up Chapel with SeeClickFix founder Ben Berkowitz. As they strolled past the several vacant spaces between Subway and TD North, Aversenti suggested that someone should start holding events in them. Berkowitz told her she should be that someone.

Aversenti soon found herself putting in her notice at the Study and talking with lawyers and accountants about setting up Our Empty Space. She also talked to Margaret Bodell, the coordinator for Project Storefronts, who signed her on as a participant.

Our Empty Space and Project Storefronts share similar goals. The difference: ​“My hope is to make money,” Aversenti said.

She does that by acting as a sort of sub-letter for the property owner at empty retail spaces. The landlord of vacant space benefits from having activity there, because it becomes more attractive for prospective long-term tenants, Aversenti said. Nevertheless, she’s found that some property owners are a little skittish about the arrangement, worried about liability and legal issues.

Aversenti said her ultimate goal is for Our Empty Space be a venue for pop-up retail more than events. She envisions seasonal retail operations setting up shop temporarily at different times of year. For instance: dorm room supplies during freshman move-in at Yale, and gift shops during commencement and Christmas. She said she sees these as high-end temporary merchants offering, for instance, sheets with a higher thread count than other shops catering to college students.

Her challenge right now is to find more vacant storefronts to work with, she said. ​“I really need more spaces.”

She has her eye on a couple of other locations, and one that she was considering was just leased out, which is bad for her business, but good for New Haven.

“I just lost one, which is good,” she said.

Zeb And Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Aversenti spoke last week about her business inside 100 Crown St., where her story was interrupted occasionally by the loud ratchet sound of a torqued-out screwgun in the same room as the Esselstyn brothers Zeb and Ted assembled a large table made from salvaged wood.

Friday marked the first day that CityBench’s new temporary retail store was open at 100 Crown St. The space, a former bank complete with a vault in one corner, is filled with tables, benches, and shelves crafted from salvaged city trees from the Greater New Haven area.

Each piece has a ​“birth certificate” detailing its provenance. Ted pointed out a book shelf made from New Haven sugar maple and some pine for the Yale botanical garden, a desk made from a Whitney Avenue gingko.

Using street trees means the brothers occasionally hit odd bits of metal while milling, said Ted, showing the bottom of a bench where a nail showed up. ​“We’ve hit everything from bullets to cable to electric wiring.”

Zeb, who’s 43, and Ted, who’s 47, have been working out of three barns in Higganum, where Ted lives. But they’d like to find a place in New Haven to mill their wood, build their furniture, and show and sell it, said Zeb, who lives in Fair Haven. ​“That’s the ideal.”