When Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry spoke with the Daily Record in August, he said the city wanted the Jacksonville Landing back in the hand of the taxpayers.
“Like right now,” Curry said at the time.
To do that, he said “all options are absolutely on the table,” while hinting that conversations between the two sides would continue into the last quarter of the year and into 2018, with the hope that a “negotiated transaction” could prevail over any legal action.
On Oct. 17, the city decided to take the legal route.
In a letter sent to Sleiman Enterprises Inc. subsidiary Jacksonville Landing Investments LLC that day, the city outlined how it believed the development group was breaching the terms of its lease agreement.
Jacksonville Landing Investments, a Sleiman entity, operates the Landing.
In response, Sleiman Enterprises announced Thursday it filed suit against the city, claiming the city was the party in breach of contract, not the other way around.
The company, led by President Toney Sleiman, purchased the Landing buildings from the city in August 2003 for $5.1 million. The city owns the land beneath it, which Sleiman is leasing through 2056.
In a news release, Sleiman spokesman Mitchell Legler said the Oct. 17 letter from the city Office of General Counsel “forced Sleiman Enterprises to institute formal litigation around the Jacksonville Landing so there will be a fair hearing of its grievances.”
“We must stand up to unfair tactics used by the city’s political leaders,” the release said. “The city has been all talk and no action for the past 14 years.”
City spokeswoman Tia Ford said today the city has no further information on the pending litigation.
City Council President Anna Lopez Brosche declined to comment.
Sleiman has not returned calls for comment, but Legler said that the city essentially forced their hand.
“We’ve been trying to work with the city since we took over the property, and quite frankly, we’ve lost faith in it,” Legler said in an interview Thursday.
The 539-page suit filed Thursday in Circuit Court, claims that the city has intentionally created obstacles for Sleiman, citing five areas of concern that include redevelopment, parking, security, exterior areas and general access to the building.
The suit claims that since Sleiman purchased the Landing, it has made multiple attempts to redevelop the property, “yet the city has blocked those efforts each time.”
It said the city has not provided contractually obligated short-term parking, invested in public security, and hasn’t maintained the surrounding areas.
“The Riverwalk is in bad shape, there’s pavers missing everywhere, the docks are in bad shape,” Legler said. “If you’re coming to the Landing, it doesn’t look like a first-class operation, and that’s on the city.”
The suit also claims the construction of a roundabout at the corner of Laura Street and Independent Drive has blocked access to the mall.
In the Oct. 17 letter sent by the city, Assistant General Counsel Christopher M. Garrett wrote that Jacksonville Landing Investments is not operating and maintaining the Landing as outlined by the lease agreement.
“We were a little surprised about the letter,” Legler said. “We think the city should’ve addressed that letter to itself.”
The city threatened to terminate the lease and remove Jacksonville Landing Investments from the property within 30 days of the letter.
Garrett outlined five areas where Jacksonville Landing Investments failed to keep up its lease requirements.
They include failing to provide and manage a “first-class retail facility having a broad range of merchandise and services consistent with the site and location.”
Garrett cited a lack of high-quality merchants in the 32-year-old mall and that “many of the spaces that appear to be occupied are closed during normal business hours.”
The letter also states that Sleiman hasn’t used all reasonable efforts to lease those storefronts.
“It’s very difficult to get new restaurants or shops in here because they don’t have the luxury dinner business,” Legler said.
“People don’t feel comfortable coming here at night, when the surrounding areas look like they do,” he said.
The city’s letter indicates that the Landing should operate “at or above the prevailing level of quality of the urban retail centers,” referencing urban malls in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston and other large cities.
The letter says Sleiman failed to maintain improvements to the mall and that the Landing hasn’t been operated “in a high-quality, first-class manner which is attractive in both its physical characteristics and in its appeal to customers and trade.”
The property also is caught up in a 2015 lawsuit between the city and Jacksonville Landing Investments over unpaid property taxes and the purchase of an adjacent parking lot.
Legler said that battle was ongoing.
“From our standpoint, Sleiman would like to find a resolution to this, and the best way to do that is for all parties to sit down at the table,” Legler said.
He added that “the city has not been willing to do that.”
Legler said that he didn’t want to speculate on why the mayor’s office initiated this latest legal battle, but “if it’s part of the city’s strategy to retake possession of the Landing, I don’t think it’s working.”
