Lawsuit filed by landlord over Chelsea's Pamida store closing on Dec. 31
Pamida's store in Chelsea will close for good on Friday.
Lisa Allmendinger | AnnArbor.com
Now the store's landlord is suing the Nebraska-based chain over the store's departure from Chelsea Shopping Center.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 14 in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, asks the court to force the discount chain to continue its rental payments to Lars Associates LLC until 2013. The base rent is $16,581.25.
Pamida notified Lars Associates on May 25 that it would vacate the store in Chelsea, 1040 S. Main, according to documents in the lawsuit.
"Pamida is the anchor tenant of the shopping center its breach of the lease will have devastating consequences to the landlord and other tenants," according to the filing.
Lars Associates, based in Bloomfield Hills, says Pamida renewed its lease in 2008, when it downsized the store to 60 percent of the space it occupied before a fire destroyed part of the shopping center.
At that time, Lars says in the filing, Pamida relinquished its right to terminate its lease based on a rider in its original lease, signed in 1993. That rider gave Pamida the right to leave the center if Meijer Inc. built a store at Jackson and Zeeb roads and Pamida sales then didn't meet sales of $5.25 million per year.
While Meijer did build the store, the successive changes to the Pamida store and its lease renewals mean the rider is not longer valid, according to Lars.
Pamida has not filed a response the lawsuit. The store remains scheduled to close Dec. 31.
Comments
Cerveza
Tue, Jan 4, 2011 : 9:20 a.m.
Target will only build where there is a Meijer close by. There is no Meijer and way not enough room for a Target. The Ann Arbor Target has an off site warehouse because no second floor was allowed to be built for backroom inventory to be stored.
Jack
Sun, Jan 2, 2011 : 12:08 p.m.
Chelsea really lucked out when Polly's took over the former Farmer Jack store with a sweetheart lease deal. I'm concerned that since A&P, who owns Farmer Jack, is now itself in liquidation, we might lose an excellent supermarket, taxpayer and employer. Any word about that?
abair
Sat, Jan 1, 2011 : 11:43 a.m.
I'd like to see Target there, too.
MichGirl
Thu, Dec 30, 2010 : 8:21 p.m.
Soooooooo, if Pamida notified Lars Associates on May 25 that it would vacate the store in Chelsea, how come Lars is just now filing suite and we're just now hearing about it. Sorry to see Pamida go, but can I request a Target go in there?!!
Gorc
Thu, Dec 30, 2010 : 7:47 p.m.
There's a big difference between winning a law suit and actually collecting the money.
15crown00
Thu, Dec 30, 2010 : 7:25 p.m.
they're gone.if not now. then. stores walk out of leases all the time these days.Lars knows it's going to be extremely hard filling the space.
SMAIVE
Thu, Dec 30, 2010 : 12:43 p.m.
Good luck with that...see A&P/Farmer Jack