| Fayetteville officials
looking closely at retail vacancy problem
By MONROE ROARK
mroark@thecitizennews.com
The rise in vacant retail space
in Fayetteville in recent months has caught the attention of city officials,
and it could be a hot topic among members of the City Council in the near
future.
The city attorney is already studying what other municipalities have done
and what Fayetteville could conceivably do, and a report will be forthcoming
at a City Council meeting very soon, according to City Manager Joe Morton
and Mayor Kenneth Steele, who spoke at length with The Citizen about the
retail problem last week.
Also, it will likely be a topic at the upcoming city retreat, scheduled
for mid-November at Callaway Gardens.
Major stores such as Kmart and Roberds have announced closings in Fayetteville
in the past few months. Roberds filed for bankruptcy protection earlier
this year, while Kmart decided to close a number of Georgia stores, with
the Fayetteville location being one of three metro Atlanta sites getting
the axe.
These announcements by large companies often catch the city by surprise
the same way they do the general public, and filling the empty spaces
they leave behind can be challenging.
Another cause of empty retail space is the construction of new buildings
such as what has risen on the Fayette Pavilion grounds in the past few
years. Existing stores often vacate their old surroundings for newer digs
as soon as they are available.
Wal-Mart relocated from the Fayetteville Corners shopping center to its
new Fayette Pavilion location a couple of years ago. Its old space lay
dormant for about two years before Hobby Lobby moved into a portion of
it earlier this year. At
the same intersection, the same building that houses the doomed Kmart
has lost a Belk retail store to a new Fayette Pavilion site, with several
other longtime tenants such as Bookland also gone by the wayside.
Even within the relatively young Pavilion itself, transience seems to
be the norm. Old Navy has moved about three doors down from its original
location, apparently to a larger space, while the Tanner's restaurant
was sold within the last few months and that space is now closed.
According to city officials and at least one corporate spokesman, getting
into these established vacant spaces can be surprisingly difficult.
Michael Velsmid, president of WestPoint Stevens Bed, Bath & Linens,
wrote in a recent letter to The Citizen of his company's fruitless efforts
to locate a store here. His letter was in response to an article on this
subject that appeared in The Citizen two weeks ago.
"WestPoint Stevens has been seeking space in several of the vacant
Fayetteville stores to no avail; one space has been vacant for two years,"
he wrote. "We have prepared leases with comparable rents only to
be rejected by the current leaseholder. Our site search agents have also
been met with inertia."
Velsmid went on in his letter to urge the city to make the revitalization
of these sites a top priority.
Morton and Steele acknowledged that they had heard Velsmid's comments
and were attempting to reach him to discuss the matter further, but were
unsuccessful so far.
One major stumbling block, as far as Fayetteville officials are concerned,
is the fact that it is often in the property owner's best interest to
let the site remain vacant.
When a major tenant such as Kmart or Wal-Mart moves to another location,
it is often in the middle of a multiyear lease that must still be honored
by the tenant, at least financially. Wal-Mart's lease at Fayetteville
Corners was not to end
until 2003, according to one report. Property owners can therefore continue
to receive huge rent checks regardless of whether the site is being used.
Also, a retailer may often have a contractual stipulation that no competitor
move into the site upon the original tenant vacating the premises.
So, ironically, the same right of a land owner to develop his or her property
also gives him or her the ability to let it sit empty, and there is little
the city can do about it. Asked if Fayetteville can take legal steps to
force a property owner to act in some way concerning his or her property,
Morton and Steele both said while they have not yet heard from the city
attorney on the matter, such an action is not likely to hold up legally
unless a health or safety issue is involved.
"In America, people have property rights," said Steele. "A
lot of logical-sounding solutions would never stand in court."
Morton added that the city can sometimes use incentives to encourage developers
to fill these spaces, or even go so far as a moratorium on new development,
but that's about it.
The Market, the teen club that was recently shut down by law enforcement
officials amid a storm of controversy, is another example of the retail
situation.
That site, a former grocery store, was vacant for some 18 months until
it reopened this year. Its owner, like most of the sites mentioned, lives
outside the state and can be difficult to even reach with an inquiry,
let alone strike a deal on a property lease.
Steele said that many of these absentee owners are content to simply let
the rent checks keep coming in without worrying about how the vacancies
make faraway Fayetteville look. "It's a cash cow," he concluded.
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