DIG IN OR PACK UP?
Distribution project at retail center puts shop owners in a tight spot
Owners of the Golden Ox Diner on Wilson Road weren’t looking forward to another restaurant relocation job. The last one started two years ago and still isn’t finished.
But their landlord at the former Kmart shopping center has asked them to move out by Jan. 15, and offered to make it worth their while, more than four months ahead of their lease expiration date.
“Customers are in an uproar,” said Kathy Exarchoulakos, who owns the restaurant together with her husband, Ted.
They and neighboring shop owners are caught between digging in at a retail center in decline or packing up to make room for one of the country’s largest companies.
It’s a dilemma many small businesses have faced over the years as developers try to give life to projects that provide new jobs and investment but which can disrupt established though modest operations that must begin again somewhere else.
Although tenants who abide by their leases are legally entitled to stay through the end of their term, landlords trying to persuade them to leave commonly buy out the lease.
“It’s simply a negotiation,” Bakersfield commercial real estate broker Scott Underhill said.
‘MAYBE’
Shopkeeper Everardo Gonzalez said he isn’t sure what he’s going to do. For 20 years he has owned and operated Dollar Mart & More two doors from the center’s vacant former Big Lots.
He said his lease doesn’t expire until 2023. He’s heard talk of a buy-out offer but hasn’t yet seen a check.
“For me it’s not easy,” he said.
Would he accept the $100,000 he suspects but isn’t sure he’s been offered to move? “Maybe,” he said.
BUYER?
The reason the landlord needs Gonzalez to leave, according to a letter he received from the landlord Wednesday, is that the property’s expected to be sold no later than Feb. 1. It didn’t name the buyer.
Tenants say they have been told by a representative of landlord Big J Investment LLC that Amazon, the e-commerce giant based in Seattle, wants to turn the center into a 123,000-square-foot warehouse.
Plans filed with the city describe a facility at that location receiving six truckloads of consumer goods per day then sorting that product
and distributing it using 20 delivery vans. The records do not name the operator of the proposed warehouse.
Amazon, which last year opened a far larger distribution facility near Meadows Field Airport, did not reply to requests for comment for this story. It previously declined to confirm the project but said it’s always looking for new locations and weighing factors for deciding where to develop sites that serve customers best.
A representative of Big J Investment, Jay “Bobby” Singh, declined to comment on word of the property’s pending sale. He referred questions to others he said would respond but did not. Singh said he had no idea whether the center’s tenants will move.
DECLINE
Kmart closed there in early 2017, followed by Big Lots. The owner of an apartment complex to the south has complained that the mostly vacant center attracts transients who sometimes hop a fence onto its property.
JC’s Home Outlet has been there for less than a year and a half. The owner, who identified herself only as Mrs. Munoz, said the landlord’s representative offered to help her move but didn’t offer money and her lease doesn’t expire until April 1.
She said the landlord accepted her December rent payment without mentioning she’d have to move by the middle of January. She said she’s trying to comply but it won’t be easy.
“Nobody wants to show you a place. And I understand that,” she said.
PRICE
Kathy and Ted Exarchoulakos expect to open a new Golden Ox later this month at 8149 E. Brundage Lane after closing one in January 2019 at 6001 Niles St. Kathy said they feel they’ve been given little option but to go through the process again with the Wilson Road location, which has been there for more than 20 years.
With the lease up in June, she said it doesn’t look like Golden Ox will be able to stay put. But she said she suspects relocation-related expenses will be more than the $100,000 the landlord has offered them to move.