Raised rents and other fees, as well as requests to change types of businesses, is making it difficult for longtime businesses to survive.
By Nora Fleming / Special to The Malibu Times
The opening of the Pavilions grocery store in May might not be the only retail change the plaza sees.
Some plaza tenants, who have been housed in the mall for well more than a decade or, for some, even two, are worried they may have to leave the plaza, due to rent increases they will no longer be able to afford.
Point Dume Chinese Restaurant is one such tenant, which has occupied space in Point Dume Village for 27 years.
Restaurant manager Wai Chun Tam said plaza property managers told him that his monthly CAM, or common area maintenance fees, would be increasing substantially. He said he might have to start paying an additional $4,000 a month.
Tam’s lease expires May 31, 2009, and he is worried management might ask him to lease and replace the restaurant with a different type of business.
The manager has met with attorney John Fletcher, of Fletcher, White and Adair, to mitigate correspondence with plaza management.
Plaza owner Zan Marquis said an announcement of plaza additions will be made soon, but at present he could not comment on the status of existing leases.
The plaza leases vary greatly in time remaining and design, given the change in ownership of the plaza over the years.
“We get a lot of compliments on our new Pavilions store and the remodel of Point Dume Village, which together have set the stage for upgrading the most current selection of stores and restaurants, whether those be businesses improving themselves or by the landlord replacing them with new businesses.”
The Dume Room, a popular bar hangout, was a victim of such changes. Marquis in 2006 said the bar, which had been at the plaza for 34 years, did not fit his vision of what the village should be. The business closed by the end of that year.
Fletcher said he has been approached by and worked with five other plaza tenants regarding similar issues to Tam’s since Marquis purchased Point Dume Village in 2005. Marquis bought the plaza for a substantially higher rate than the previous owner had, and as a result, a reassessed property value has caused a dramatic increase in cost per square footage rent, in addition to CAM charges, that some tenants will not be able to afford, Fletcher said.
“No matter how well you do, you aren’t going to make it if [rent] exceeds a certain amount,” said Fletcher, who emphasized that local independent “mom and pop” stores cannot compete with some larger big name businesses or chains the plaza may be seeing.
“The bottom line is, [the property owner] paid a lot for the center and he’s got to make it perform,” Fletcher said.