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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIn February 1995, the Lakeland Community Redevelopment Agency signed a lease agreement with Publix for property at 321 S. Kentucky Avenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt any time during the initial term hereof, or any renewal thereof, the LESSEE shall have the option to purchase the demised premises for Ten Dollars ($10.00) upon giving LESSOR sixty (60) days\u2019 written notice of its intent to exercise such option,\u201d the lease reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you remember in the 90s, it was a ghost town,\u201d said commissioner Stephanie Madden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Madden said the lease deal was meant to entice business to downtown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat really was a part of the strategy to rebuild downtown was to see if we could get an anchor tenant and Publix was that anchor tenant,\u201d said Madden. \u201cWe can\u2019t have coffee shops. We can\u2019t have restaurants. We can\u2019t have retail if there\u2019s no one here to go to their shops and those retail establishments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, with plans to build an IT campus in downtown Lakeland, Publix has reportedly taken the city of Lakeland up on that offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a city commission meeting this week, commissioners unanimously agreed to sell the Kentucky Avenue building to Publix for $10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been a good business partner. They\u2019ve employed our people. They\u2019ve provided good jobs, well-paying jobs,\u201d said Lakeland city commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the Kentucky Avenue building, the commission also agreed to sell the Orange Street parking garage to Publix for $10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a building that was given to the city. It\u2019s a parking garage that we\u2019re losing money on and so this, it is a good deal for downtown. It makes sense,\u201d said commissioner Chad McLeod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
City attorney Palmer Davis said in the meeting that the city loses $59,000 on the garage a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis has been running at a deficit, so rolling it off of the city\u2019s books really helps with that transportation account that we could use help with,\u201d said Roberts McCarley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commissioner Madden said the city had to make the first move by offering Publix a good deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery time you go first and you take the risk, hopefully that\u2019s going to pay off, but it\u2019s always a risk,\u201d said Madden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lakeland Gazette reached out to Publix for comment and has not heard back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For less than the price of a sheet cake but more than a chicken tender sub, Lakeland city commission agreed to sell Publix two properties downtown. In February 1995, the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58593,"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":"14","_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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTBcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMTAwLTEyLndlYnA_Zml0PTM5NCUyQzE1NCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Ikxha2VsYW5kIGNvbW1pc3Npb24gYWdyZWVzIHRvIHNlbGwgYnVpbGRpbmcsIGdhcmFnZSB0byBQdWJsaXggZm9yICQyMCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.lOxpjNravJkvdpXHmGZtLaTVDmybaF-KwmoQGvkQ4icMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[12425,12424],"class_list":["post-58592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-garage-to-publix-for-20","tag-lakeland-commission-agrees-to-sell-building"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58592","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58594,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58592\/revisions\/58594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}