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To Revive a Dying Main Street, One British Landlord Offered Free Rent



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For two decades, Steven Wyatt was in a cycle of drug addiction and rehab. In 2006, during a stint at a recovery center, he learned how to restore furniture, a skill that led him to an unexpected place: running his own store in Poole, a coastal town in southwest England.Mr. Wyatt, 46, is among a handful of beneficiaries of an unusual experiment in real estate and urban renewal. His store, Restored Retro, is one of 10 businesses that were given two years of free rent for an empty storefront on a small shopping street in Poole called Kingland Crescent.The offer came from the property’s owner, Legal & General Investment Management, Britain’s largest asset manager, which had been struggling to revive a near-derelict …

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