Landlord gives renters credit up to $1000 for shopping, dining locally
HAP Investments CEO Eran Polack tries to help New York City by encouraging tenants to shop locally.
A New York City-based landlord and property owner joined "America's Newsroom" Wednesday to explain why he's giving renters credit up to $1000 for local shopping and dining this holiday season.
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"For the last year, I’m thinking about what I can do myself to help the city to make it better, to bring it back to where it was… and I think like you can always talk about things and you can suggest ideas, you can criticize but I felt like I really need to do something," HAP Investments CEO Eran Polack said.
When Polack was walking with his son, wanting to purchase football gloves for him, he said he couldn’t find a store to buy them.
"Like there are no stores. You can only buy it online," Polack said.
After receiving a "note" at one of his buildings from a struggling retail store in his neighborhood - New York City's economy has suffered drastically during the coronavirus pandemic - Polack said he wondered how he could lend a hand.
"I thought, let’s do something like a credit card, let’s do something like cashback and that’s how I come up with the idea. First of all, I will help the stores… But I really hope that my tenants will get introduced to stores in the neighborhood by that promotion and after that will keep buying from those stores."
Giving the renters credit of up to $1000 is part of the effort to help stimulate New York City's small businesses.
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Polack said any "lock and shop" within a one-mile radius of his building can participate in the no-sign-up-required program:
"Our tenants will give us the receipt, we will calculate the cashback that the tenants need to get from the rent, and our tenants will get the cashback from their February rent."
Polack's comments came after the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week fell to the lowest level in more than half a century, the latest sign the labor market is bouncing back from the coronavirus pandemic.
While small businesses nationwide continue to lament over hiring struggles, supply chain issues, and inflation concerns, though, Polack's promotional plan is something he hopes fellow landlords everywhere will implement.
"I really hope more landlords will join me and do that so we can strengthen the retail industry," he concluded.
FOX Business' Megan Henney contributed to this report.
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