Paul Briknmann:
Artegon eatery seeks CBRE subpoena.
The owner of a Fuddruckers restaurant at the former Artegon Markeplace on International Drive is requesting that a judge order real estate firm CBRE, and its agent Bobby Palta, to turn over records about the closed mall.
The former mall closed in January amid complaints from vendors that they were misled about the future of the shopping destination. More than a dozen businesses were given two weeks’ notice to leave; many sued.
Fuddruckers is located just outside the mall in an attached building. Its owner, Miami franchisee Blue Hills International, is suing mall owner Lightstone Group, accusing the landlord of depriving it of business and making people think the entire complex is closed when it isn’t. A movie theater, Bass Pro Shops and Fuddruckers remain open.
CBRE is Lightstone’s real estate broker. They’ve been marketing the former mall as Orlando IDrive Centre. A sale of the property had been rumored early in 2017, but lawsuits piled up, and some of the plaintiffs attempted tie up the property itself in litigation.
Orange County Circuit Judge Julie O’Kane has thrown out most of the attempts to drag the property into the lawsuits. But there are still ongoing disputes over money.
Merchants like David Sandidge, a glassblower who quit a job at Disney to open his own shop, lost whatever they had invested in building out their space at Artegon and marketing it.
The crux of the dispute is whether Lightstone knowingly misled the tenants about their plan to close the mall, until the last couple weeks.
Blue Hills is seeking the following from Palta: His entire file on the Artegon mall and its property; all documents relating the Blue Hills (Fuddruckers) lease at the mall; documents that Palta may have produced in any legal dispute involving other tenants.
Palta declined to comment. A spokeswoman for CBRE said the company was reviewing the subpoena request.
This summer, Lightstone’s representatives in court said the lawsuits by former tenants of the mall threaten to delay the sale and redevelopment of the 104-acre property.
The litigation “has caused and will continue to cause substantial harm to Landlord by chilling the potential sale of the property,” according to a court filing by owner FB Orlando Acquisition, a subsidiary of Lightstone.
The property could fetch $30 million to $50 million, according to the owner. It’s also a key property for revitalizing the north end of International Drive.
The owners have filed testimony saying Artegon was a failure and half its tenants weren’t paying rent — at least $600,000 behind when it closed.
The mall owner has threated to bring slander of title claims against some of the tenants, be-
cause it argues that they only had the right to a small piece of the entire mall, but the litigation could hold up the entire acreage.
In the meantime, the owners have filed a plan with the city seeking approvals to build a mixed-use retail and residential development there. CBRE took down a webpage advertising the property.
Moratorium lawsuit
Osceola County is facing a new lawsuit over its six-month moratorium on new development.
The suit comes from a developer, Buracos Property Investment, who is seeking zoning approvals to allow construction of over 800 homes on 104 acres near Boggy Creek Road and Simpson Road.
The purpose of the moratorium is to allow time to review construction fees, parking and design standards, which would prepare the county for thousands of new homes proposed for the area.
The lawsuit in Orlando federal court says Buracos is seeking a change to the county’s Future Land Use Map, moving the property from rural enclave to lowdensity residential, as defined in the county’s 2025 Comprehensive Plan. The zoning change is opposed by a community group with a petition on Change.org.
According to the lawsuit, Buracos’ proposal made it through staff review and the county’s Development Review Committee, only to stall when it reached the Board of County Commissioners on Sept. 18.
At that meeting the Board was scheduled to consider the next step in the development — state review. But most of the meeting was taken up by discussion of a moratorium, the lawsuit says. It says the county and citizens who spoke at the meeting “failed to acknowledge” that Burasco’s proposal addressed the problems of traffic and school planning.
Attempts to solicit a comment on the lawsuit from the county were not successful by press time.