A Gap Factory Store opened on Friday at the corner of Gallatin Place to a seemingly enthusiastic welcome from Brooklyn shoppers.
A store manager told the Brooklyn Paper that high demand at the Gap’s Kings Plaza shopping center location led them to open a Fulton Mall outlet. And with lines stretched from the registers to the fitting rooms in the back—it seemed that the customer base was indeed there.
However, not everyone is happy about Fulton Mall's recent and ongoing transformation.
Lucas Shapiro, a senior organizer at Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, spoke out against developers who are now trying to “cash in on a boom” and ignoring the small businesses that have kept the Fulton Mall afloat for years.
Shapiro blasted the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership for making an “effort to displace the current consumers with a wealthier clientele.”
In January, at the future CityPoint project at the eastern end of Fulton Mall, with a Downtown Brooklyn outpost of Century 21 perhaps following suit.
, with signs up at Fulton and Bridge streets informing customers that "the wait is almost over."
In a December poll about , 51 percent of readers said the chain stores were convenient, and saved them a trip in Manhattan for their shopping.
