By Ann-Marie AlcĚÁntara
Another day in San Francisco means the announcement of another beloved local store closing its doors. It isn’t a dive bar this time — instead, it’s Jeffrey’s Toys on Market Street, which will stop operating at the end of April.
This isn’t the first chapter in Jeffrey’s troubled real estate saga. A year ago, Mark Luhn, the owner of Jeffrey’s Toys, stopped restocking merchandise for fear of being run out by a rent hike. Now, without a renewed lease and the prospect of a possible rent increase to $40K per month, everything in the store is 20 percent off, and it really does look like the place will be gone very soon. Jeffrey’s has been in San Francisco since 1970.
Brookfield Office Properties, a real estate company, bought the building that Jeffrey’s Toys occupies in October 2013. The company then extended the store’s below market rate lease with the caveat that at any time the company and the store could give each other a 60-day vacate notice. Now, a year later, Jeffrey’s isn’t getting its lease renewed and has received that dreaded 60-day notice. The store must leave the space by May 8.
The situation hasn’t been easy for Jeffrey’s, as Brookfield Office Properties didn’t offer Luhn a new lease or a chance to negotiate a new rental price agreement. “They basically told us they don’t want a toy store in this space,” Rosie Luhn, Mark Luhn’s wife, told The Bold Italic. That isn’t the worst of it — the store isn’t even allowed to put up a closing sign. They initially posted a sign that said “Lost our lease, come in and take 20% off,” but the landlord forced them to take it down. Since the Luhns don’t want a bad referral in case they find a new place to house the store, they complied, but still feel it was an unfair request from the landlord.
While there are other toy shops in San Francisco, none is located in the downtown area. Customers are naturally upset about the closing, but Rosie Luhn says they’re trying to find another location. “If we can’t find another location, this could be the last toy store in San Francisco,” she said. “We don’t want that to happen, but we don’t have another choice.” The store plans to close its doors towards the end of April.
[h/t CBS SF Bay Area; top photo courtesy of Kevin Y/Yelp]
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