Brixton Village and Market Row are to reopen fully on Monday 15 June, Hondo Enterprises has announced.
The company said social distancing and hygiene measures will be implemented, including new signage, entry posters, floor markers and “informational wayfinding” to help visitors navigate safely once non-essential shops reopen.
To aid traders, Hondo will implement a three-month “rent holiday” for all 119 of its Brixton Village and Market Row tenants.
A Hondo spokesperson said some traders have chosen to use the last three months for they are in arrears as the “holiday” while others, who have already paid, will get the next three months free.
Hondo runs the markets in a partnership with the giant New York based finance company Angelo Gordon through companies based in Amsterdam.
Hondo said it was “keen to understand each individual trader’s business plan moving forward after this rent-free period.”
It said the group “is committed to offering operational and business counsel, working with tenants to understand their long-term business plans, including further measures and support that might be required from the landlord.”
Hondo had worked closely with Lambeth council to help traders who needed them obtain government grants related to the pandemic as quickly as possible, it said.
Brian Danclair, owner of Caribbean restaurant Fish, Wings and Tings said: “We are very appreciative of the kind gesture to grant three months of rent due to the uncertainty and hardship caused by the pandemic.
“I am sure all of Brixton Village’s traders and will be extremely relieved to receive this.”
Taylor McWilliams, the sole director of Hondo Enterprises, said: “We want to thank all the traders and staff who have continued to serve the community during this period.
“Everyone connected to the market is having to adapt, but with this rent holiday and continued collaboration with all traders we are confident we can emerge stronger than ever, together.”
McWilliams, the sole director of Hondo Enterprises, an American and part of the DJ group Housekeeping, is facing questions over Hondo’s growing role in Brixton’s future.
He is coming under increasing pressure over his company’s plans to build a large electricity sub-station in the Market Row unit currently used by Nour Cash & Carry, which has been a key trader in Brixton market for decades.
This has involved securing an eviction notice against Nour that is due to take effect in July.
There is also local concern about Hondo’s planning application to construct a 19-storey office building on the current site of Sports Direct on Pope’s Road and extending all the way down Brixton Station Road to Valentia Place.
The purchase by the Hondo partnership of the Coldharbour Lane building that once housed one of Brixton longest running and most respected entertainment institutions – Club 414 – after its proprietors had been forced to leave also upset many local people.
Last year Stafford Geohagen, proprietor of Healthy Eaters, which, like Nour Cash & Carry is sited between Market Row and Electric Avenue, had to take the registered owners of Market Row – the Amsterdam-based company AG Market Row B.V. – to court to get his lease renewed.
This overlooks the fact that Hondo have basically turned the rent strike by the traders who legally wernt allowed to open and whom Hondo had said would still need to pay, into a PR opportunity. They knew they wernt going to get that rent anyway and are desperate for any damage limitation.