HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/9/2024 Item 5h, Schmidt
From:Richard Schmidt <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Agenda Item 5h (Shoe Palace)
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Re: Lowering Shoe Palace lease to 73 cents per SF!
Dear Council,
When I initially saw this item, at first I thought it was a joke, but then realized it was only a Saturday Night Live parody of a
joke in which our ever-loyal civil servants recommend council sweeten an existing financial shakedown of we the people
as demanded by an East Coast capitalist investment fund worth billion$$ that’s selfishly destroyed our downtown, on
behalf of a poor downtrodden can’t-pay-so-much-rent shoestore. For the record, that downtrodden shoestore, Shoe
Palace, with 160 USA stores, is owned by JD Sports, a British outfit that operates about 2,500 stores worldwide, and JD is
55% owned by an investment fund, Pentland Group, whose investment entities generate $6.4 billion in annual sales and
whose principal owner is reported to be Britain’s top taxpayer. (1)
Amazing. Truly these poor folks are deserving of every bit of public welfare assistance we the people can possibly offer.
Some other things to consider:
• Do you seriously believe Jamestown will be renting the space to Shoe Palace for the amount the city charges
Jamestown? Come on now. What’s the true rent?
• Jamestown itself is responsible for much of the empty retail space downtown. Across Marsh Street from Shoe Palace is
the old Riley’s store and the one-time Fresh Choice/Pizza Kitchen, all vacant for years. If Jamestown would charge
appropriate rents, maybe like those “fraction-of-market” rates it asks the city to charge, these spaces would be filled. But
apparently it’s in Jamestown’s own financial interest to keep those spaces empty. You know, tax deductions, etc., another
way these affluent investment outfits beggar we the people and ruin our downtown.
• Has staff put it to Jamestown: If you think the rent you propose to pay the city is fair, we’d go along with it only after you
lower your own rents for vacant property you control to the same price and actually fill them with tenants? No, it seems the
city doesn’t use its negotiating power for the public good, but only genuflects to Jamestown’s selfish demands.
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• The city has no idea what the Shoe Palace space is actually worth because ever since Riley’s went out of business the
space has been controlled by Copeland/Jamestown interests through a “master lease” which is a crony arrangement
that’s fundamentally corrupt and anti-market.
• To find out what the space is worth, the city should call Jamestown’s bluff, eliminate the master lease, and put the space
out to bid, with the bid floor set by what Shoe Palace is actually paying. Hard to believe nobody’d take it on terms like that.
If the city lacks competence to administer its own retail leases, hire a local commercial property manager (i.e., not the
residential manager the city claims to have consulted) and quit farming this job out to out of town investment capitalists.
This should end the rip-off of we the people, who deserve to collect fair rent for property owned in our name. (2)
Whatever you do, don’t ratify the financial shakedown staff is recommending. It’s time to end the crony corruption of
the master lease, give others a fair chance to use this good retail space and we the people the fair return on
investment we deserve. Downtown could become a lot healthier if the city were to take this forward-thinking approach.
Richard Schmidt
(1) Why is this background concealed from the public in the staff report? It took me all of about 5 minutes of computer
mousing to discover this. Is staff unable to do the same, or are they being told not to provide full disclosure but only to
advocate for what those in charge want?
(2) Staff moans breaking up the space would be costly. Baloney. How much would it cost to change a display window to a
door and erect a gypboard partition? Since smaller spaces apparently rent for more per square foot, increased rent would
cover the cost. Besides, changes to the premises are called “tenant improvements” for a reason: the tenant, not the
landlord, executes and pays for them.
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