{"id":49038,"date":"2024-08-22T15:11:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T19:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=49038"},"modified":"2024-08-22T15:17:42","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T19:17:42","slug":"lakeland-cra-says-it-will-not-renew-the-current-lease-for-the-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/08\/22\/lakeland-cra-says-it-will-not-renew-the-current-lease-for-the-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland CRA says it will not renew the current lease for The Well"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The founders of a Midtown community event space are being vocal about their concerns for future gatherings in light of recent notice their lease will not be renewed by the city.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Owners of The Well, Sallie Stone and her husband, Mario, spoke to Lakeland commissioners Monday morning about the Aug. 5 notice from the Lakeland Community Redevelopment Agency. The City Commission doubles at the CRA’s board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This notice of termination has raised significant concerns for me as owner, but also has caused a high level of concern for the entrepreneurs we support, small businesses we partner with, organizations, and the community-at-large we connect and collaborate with,” Sallie Stone said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where The Well’s lease started<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Well signed a lease agreement with the Lakeland CRA in December 2020, according to documents received from the CRA, for the rental of its site at 114 E. Parker St. The existing building on the property was found to have significant structural issues and was torn down to make way for a new building that cost the city approximately $1.3 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Well celebrated its grand opening in the new 4,700-square-foot space on Jan. 21, 2022. It aimed to serve as a business resource center for businesses owned by underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, veterans, or individuals with a disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have been in business less than three years and it would be disingenuous not to renew The Well\u2019s lease when we have made such a significant impact in a community that has traditionally been blighted and overlooked in Midtown,” Stone said to commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stone argued for the provision of its original lease, set to expire Dec. 31, that allowed for automatic renewal for three years provided The Well had not defaulted on its payment or lease terms, or neither party provided notice of non-renewal. The Well’s rental payments were waived for its first 15 months of business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We did not perceive, plan or get any indication it wouldn\u2019t automatically renew,” she told The Ledger after Monday’s meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Bill Mutz said the Aug. 5 notice was meant to provide the legally required 120-days\u2019 notice that The Well’s existing lease wouldn’t be automatically renewed, but left open the possibility of negotiating a new lease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another option is for The Well to consider purchasing the property from the CRA. There is a difficulty there. Mutz said if Stone were to propose purchasing the building, the city would legally be required to put out a notice allowing any other interested parties to bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under its contract, The Well would have the first right to match the top bid for purchase price \u2014 if it could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stone said she submitted a draft proposal to purchase the building from the CRA, for which she had a meeting with Mutz and CRA Manager Valerie Vaught on Aug. 5. She did not expect to receive a notice of non-renewal the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We\u2019ve been talking with Valerie about purchase options since April,” Stone said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The founders of a Midtown community event space are being vocal about their concerns for future gatherings in light of recent notice their lease will not be renewed by the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[9556],"class_list":["post-49038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-lakeland-cra-says-it-will-not-renew-the-current-lease-for-the-well"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49040,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49038\/revisions\/49040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}