Longtime downtown Windsor bars look elsewhere as rents skyrocket

Article content

Barely a month after the city unveiled a seven-part plan to revive downtown Windsor, the owners of two of its longest-standing establishments are unsure if they’ll stick around.

Changes loom for Craft Heads Brewing Company and Phog Lounge — fixtures of downtown’s music and arts community for 10 and 20 years, respectively. Both face rent increases after a recent transfer of building ownership.

Article content

The pair are now moving a portion of their businesses to a new location on Erie Street, despite not wanting to leave downtown.

Craft Heads’ co-owner Jason Barsotta told the Star the experience has left him feeling that there are “no safeguards for small businesses that have been in downtown Windsor for the past 10, 15 or 20 years.

“We’ve been through the hard times of downtown, and we just feel like it’s unfortunate that now with everything going on, we might not be here to see it at its finest.

“We’ve championed downtown as much as we can for the past 10 years, as have a lot of other small business owners around here.”

Barsotta said the brewery had a five-year lease with the old building owners, but when that expired in February, the new ownership tripled the rent.

“We definitely saw some sort of increase coming,” said Bryan Datoc, the brewery’s co-founder and co-owner. 

“But the 300 per cent increase was just out of this world. When I saw that email, I thought it was for the entire year.”

He said they have never met the new owner, who they believe is located out of town.

The landlord declined to comment after the Star reached out through a real estate company he uses.

Article content

Datoc considers it unrealistic to continue running the taproom and brewery out of three units on Pelissier Street and University Avenue West.

Another stipulation made by the landlord, said Datoc, was that they could no longer make “beer or beer products” in the taproom — even though they had done so for years. He said this forced his team to find a new location for the brewery.

Datoc said they now plan to run just the one unit downtown and transform it into the Windsor Comedy Club, a hub for weekly stand-up events.

“From what we’ve gone through in the past couple months with these landlords,” said Barsotta, “it seems clear to us that they don’t want us here.”

According to the former lease, Craft Heads had been paying the same rent for five years.

Months after celebrating Phog Lounge’s 20th anniversary, the music venue’s owner Tom Lucier, who shares the same new landlord, said he also worries about his future downtown.

Lucier said he recently renewed his lease and managed to negotiate a proposed 19 per cent increase down to 12 per cent, which he finds manageable.

However, he worries he might face the same rent hike as Craft Heads when his one-year lease ends, which would drive him out. He plans to open a second location on Erie Street beside WindsorEats by early August as a fail-safe.

Article content

While residential rental units have limits on how much landlords can increase rent each year, commercial spaces in Ontario do not.

The Commercial Tenancies Act does not regulate rent increases, so without a lease, the landlord can increase rent by any amount at any time.

“I don’t know that it should be a reasonable expectation of anyone, regardless of what side you’re on, to expect to pay the same amount that you paid” years ago, said Chris MacLeod, chair of the Downtown Windsor BIA.

“I don’t know what we can do in these situations because we’re dealing with a landlord and a business owner and they both need to make decisions that are best for their individual businesses.”

MacLeod thinks rent downtown is comparable to other neighbourhoods in the city and does not believe there is “an unlevel playing field when it comes to what landlords are asking.”

But Lucier feels that out-of-town landlords are “taking over spaces with tenants, long-term community members, and then pricing them out.

“There’s so much property available, go get that and develop that instead.”

Commercial real estate firm CBRE Ltd. recently found that nearly half of downtown Windsor’s office space sits empty — the highest rate of any city in Canada.

Article content

In April, city administration announced its “Strengthen the Core” plan, which in addition to addressing an array of safety concerns downtown, also baked in strategies to activate vacant commercial spaces.

Part of the plan is to support the DWBIA’s efforts to attract new businesses and “anchor tenants,” like grocery stores and restaurants, and explore short-term city-funded incentives.

MacLeod said the DWBIA hopes to improve its former Business Incentive Program, which awarded businesses funding to cover a portion of their rent between 2013 and 2022.

DWBIA executive director Debi Croucher told the Star only four of the 12 businesses that participated in the program still exist today. The majority lasted two to three years.

Under the downtown revitalization plan, the city also intends to improve existing venues — such as the Riverfront Festival Plaza — and offer events that draw more people to the core.

But Lucier feels the plan came “too little, too late.”

“Do I want to leave downtown, the neighborhood I’ve been trying to nurture for how many years? No, I don’t.”

Article content

But he feels he may have no choice.

“It’s sad because it’s places like Phog and Craft Heads that create the fabric of downtown,” said Rino Bortolin, who represented Windsor’s downtown Ward 3 for eight years.

“There are so many great aspects to these places and the cultural fabric that they create.

“Those are the bigger blows to downtown when you start to lose those places that make it special.”

Within the past year, a slew of established downtown businesses shuttered.

Side Bar, a long-standing cocktail bar which opened in 2008, closed after irreparable water damage to their building. La Vern’s Market, located in the same building, also shut its doors. When it opened in 2021, La Vern’s was heralded as the type of business the downtown needed to attract new residents.

The boutique grocery store’s closing was preceded by the shutting down of The Manchester Pub and Dugout Sports Lounge.

As part of the ebb and flow of business, however, other places have launched, such as: Republic, a high-end Asian fusion restaurant, and Hot Tacos, while The Cherry rock bar will open soon.

MacLeod said he tries to “focus on the positive” and is encouraged by new businesses opening downtown.

“For Phog and Craft Heads, I hope that they are able to find a pathway forward, because I really believe that 12 to 24 months from now, it’s going to be a very different environment downtown than it is today,” said MacLeod.

“That’s because of the initiatives that have been started by the city.”

mmazak@postmedia.com

Article content