The ongoing tide of rising commercial rent is taking its toll on Latino supermarkets. With rents and property taxes nearly doubling in recent years, almost half the supermarkets in East Harlem have closed, according to Diana Ayala in Councilmember Melissa Mark Viverito’s office.

The most recent casualty in East Harlem is the Pioneer Super Market on Madison Avenue at 111 Street. Raymond Corona, who operated the Pioneer Market for 17 years at the same location, agreed to settle a long running lawsuit over higher rents with the building’s owner, Urban American Corp, and will close the store for good at the end of the month. In the last few years, Corona has seen his rent go from $8,000 per month to $16,500 per month.

While he plans to relocate the business, he has not as yet found another location. Over half his customers are Latino. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” says Corona, who has a wife and two children.

State Assemblyman Adam Powell has taken an interest in Corona’s case and is trying to persuade N.Y.C. Housing Authority to make low-cost space available in a nearby project. Powell’s chief of staff Evette Zayas says, “We need to roll up our sleeves and find a way to preserve our community markets.”

Joe DiPlasco, spokesman for Corona’s landlord, claims that the market was $150,000 behind in its rent and had agreed to close as part of the settlement. “We are sensitive to the community’s needs and will try to find another market to take over the space,” says DiPlasco.

Henry Calderon, president of East Harlem Chamber of Commerce, says there are programs that market owners can turn to that will enable them to stay in the community. “We are against commercial rent regulation,” he says. He points out that there are a number of low interest loan programs that will help provide money for the business owners to buy the buildings that they operate in.

Supermarkets like Corona’s have been particularly hard hit because they are larger than bodegas so increases have greater impact. Without the product line that a Pathmark can carry in its 40,000 square feet, independent local ownership of neighborhood markets may be a thing of the past.

In Brooklyn, local Latino merchants in Williamsburg currently rent space from the City of New York in a communal market located on Moore Street. After a long battle to stay, the 14 market owners are being forced out in order to make way for housing.