Subway franchisee Joseph Moore closed his Downtown store at 140 W. Monroe St. on Tuesday, blaming the city’s decision to allow food trucks in the adjacent Hemming Park.
He also said that vendors at the monthly First Wednesday Art Walk were allowed to park in front of the building, hindering access to his sandwich shop.
“The city forced us to close,” Moore said Friday morning as he was packing shelving into a vehicle. He said he has been paying rent and utilities while the food trucks can hook up to city electricity for free.
Moore said he has owned the Downtown Subway for six or seven years and has 10 more shops from Mayport to Middleburg, a stretch where “I don’t have any trouble.”
He ended his comments as he began to meet with landlord Jim Dalton, CEO of the Dalton Agency, whose leaders own the building.
Dalton said Friday that when the ownership group bought the building a decade ago, it signed a 10-year lease with the Subway franchisee and the lease is up at the end of the year.
Dalton leadership bought the structure in February 2008.
A news release from the agency said the Subway lease was month-to-month.
Dalton said he did not know why Moore closed the shop.
Dalton said it operated Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. to about 5 or 6 p.m., and on some weekends during events.
“I’m not privy to their business decision or why they shut down. I just know their lease is up and they didn’t want to renew the lease,” he said.
Dalton said he learned of the decision about two weeks ago.
Subway leased about 2,000 square feet of space, which Dalton Agency intends to convert into a multipurpose space for use by clients, staff and Downtown groups.
Dalton, a national advertising and public relations firm, said in the release that the building ownership group comprises agency principals Jim Dalton, Dave Josserand and Michael Munz.
“Our vision is to create a meeting and workspace that offers a catering kitchen, meeting rooms and entertainment space with attitude,” the release reads.
Dalton said he hoped to complete the space design by the end of the year and build it next year. The release said the staff’s ideas and desires will be part of the design.
It said the space provides a way “to bring an adaptive reuse philosophy to how we make this space fun, not just for our staff and clients but for the community as well.”
Dalton said the ownership considered leasing out the space and there was interest, “but I think it’s difficult for a retailer only to be open Monday to Friday during the day because there is not a lot of night and weekend business.”