Capital Bagel Bakery, Bradlee Shopping Center in West Alexandria - Evicted and Closed.

[lperry]

I got home tonight to find the neighborhood listserve abuzz with news that the bagel shop in Bradlee Center has been served notice of eviction.  There was a link to this petition for signing, and I'm curious if there is any way to find out the facts about what has happened. 

[lperry]

And the word from the shopping center, posted on their Facebook page.

[DaveO]

I was about to write a response with some hypotheticals just as I saw the note from the landlord:

In any case:

1.  As outsiders we don't know the rent history of the tenant.

2.  I don't know about the current legality of this issue, but certain types of larger tenants in a shopping center were able to get agreements from the landlord as to limiting or curtailing competition with its merchandise.  Those kinds of agreements may be still in force or might have been disallowed.  I'm not current on that.

3.  Its possible, if those type clauses are still in effect the new high end supermarket might have wanted to restrict competition in the mall for certain types of items they sell,  (ie possibly baked goods, bagels, a sitdown bagelry etc.).

4.  If those types of clauses are still in effect, and if the bagelry had a history of poor rent payment it could have expedited the move by the landlord to evict the tenant.  Generally a landlord doesn't terminate a lease without cause.  That would be an easy situation to overturn.  A lease is a strong written contractural agreement.

[DonRocks]

I got home tonight to find the neighborhood listserve abuzz with news that the bagel shop in Bradlee Center has been served notice of eviction.  There was a link to this petition for signing, and I'm curious if there is any way to find out the facts about what has happened. 

And the word from the shopping center, posted on their Facebook page.

Thank you, Linda, for presenting both sides of the he-said, she-said, which serve no purpose except to make things even more confusing (as so often happens). Somebody is mostly right, and we'll probably never know who it is. Logically, I see precious little reason for the landlord to just randomly boot out a popular tenant (refusal to accept a large rent increase notwithstanding).

[JBag57]

I tend to believe the landlord when it says that the opening of the Fresh Market grocery store in the shopping center was not the cause of this.  Fresh Market hopefully learned a lesson about trying to muscle out independent, local retailers when it leaned on a landlord to kick Norm's Beer and Wine out of its location in Vienna, next door to where a Fresh Market location was to open.  The community spoke, Fresh Market capitulated, and Norm's remains in its original location.

[On the Waterfront]

I would think that Alexandria Pastry Shop would be the bigger competition for The Fresh Market than Bagel Bakery.

[lperry]

Here's the latest. 

[DaveO]

From a real estate perspective:

1.  I liked seeing what the mayor wrote.  He is not part of the he said/she said in which third parties debate the facts

2.  A store manager would not know if the owner is sending in rental checks on a timely basis.

3.  I assume there is no automatic right to renew.  maybe they are at the tail end of old lease(s) wherein they had exercised previous renewal clauses.

4.  Many times despite the language of a lease which often gives a landlord strong rights to evict for non payment or late payment or repeated late payments of rent, or partial payments...landlords do at times try and work these things out with tenants.  On the other hand if there was strong demand for space in the center and there was one weak tenant...the landlord might exercise the eviction notice for violating pretty strict covenants about payment and then get a new tenant in there.

5.  I think the business owner was clever to try and get public support.  The business owner's piece though didn't reference financial status.

6.  The smell test leads me to believe the tenant repeatedly violated the payment clauses.   But that is just my opinion without knowing facts.

[lperry]

The store is empty and the signage is down.  No word on where they are going, but there is a statement up at Fresh Market indicating they did not ask WRIT to evict the bakery.

[DonRocks]

Capital Bagel Bakery was at 3610-A King Street, and it looks like several of the tenants were "sacrificed" (for lack of a better word) to accommodate the larger, arguably anchor-caliber, Fresh Market. I'm not sure how many stores were closed to handle Fresh Market, but if anyone knows, I'd be interested (I believe Fresh Market's address is 3680 King Street). 

[iolaire]

Fresh Market took the former Giant Foods space, I think it was a one unit to one unit transition.

Capital Bagel Bakery was in the area of the new Urgent Care center, which probably took that space plus the former Blockbuster Video space.