Neighborly X-citement

Downtown homeowners have come to expect the unexpected, but an adult video store on the ground floor of your building? That's what residents of the Bartlett Building on Seventh Street were faced with when the DVDs were carted in and the "Adult Video" sign flickered on. "I had no idea," developer Barry Shy told the Downtown News. "I will tell [the owner] to stop immediately and if not I will send an eviction notice. I'm not going to stand for that. No way." Shy has hoped for a boutique or cafe, but developers still have a tough time finding higher-end retail for their ground-floor leases (even tougher for the national chains). The store's owner, Bruce Kim, says he was upfront about what he would be selling (he wasn't dealing directly with Shy). "They're killing me," he told the newspaper.