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Future uncertain for Third Street Plaza, some tenants say
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Third Street eviction notices
Landlord of Third Street plaza is filing eviction notices to some, if not all, tenants. At least three tenants are filing a countersuit
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The discount signs printed on computer paper are in the windows of home decor store Reflections of Naples in Third Street Plaza.
It’s a moving sale, the signs announce.
Reflections owner Larry Harris brought in his daughter and her boyfriend to help load the truck and haul the inventory into storage until he figures out a plan.
“We were so hard hit. Nobody was coming,” Harris said Wednesday morning while sitting in front of the shop he opened in November 2006.
The emptiness of the Plaza at 1170 Third St. S., on the corner of Broad Avenue, hasn’t been good for business, Harris said.
In the past two years, The Good Life, a cookware store, left the Plaza; so did Bountiful, Artful Diva, Femme Fatale, Dominique Design Studio, Giggles and Glitz, Via Mediterranee, and ilSandalo on the inner courtyard.
On Gallery Row, the side that faces Broad Avenue, Gallery Matisse is gone, too.
The remaining tenants complain of a lack of communication from the landlord, broken promises about the future of the plaza, delays in fixing maintenance problems, and poor marketing.
The Plaza is managed by Naples-based Welsh Cos. Florida Inc.
It is operated by Washington Real Estate Partners LLC and Speyhawk Naples Inc., both of which share a Washington, D.C., and Boynton Beach address.
The owner of the plaza is listed by the Collier County Property Appraiser as Naples resident Charles A. Camalier III.
Harris said it took eight months to get the name of his store on one of the directories in the plaza, and Reflections is still absent from at least one.
His sales were down 65 percent in February and 85 percent in June, he said, and losing his job as an engineer in February exacerbated the situation.
“(Reflections) was fun. I enjoyed it. I just went into this too big.” Harris said.
The combination of his overzealousness and what he cites as management and landlord missteps are pushing his doors closed as of this weekend.
“I’m watching Larry (Harris) move out, thinking ‘this too shall be me,’ ” said plaza tenant Tricia Lund, co-owner of Beadniks.
She and her husband, Billy, opened the bead franchise shop in the Plaza in March 2007.
Despite initial building delays inside the store, which pushed back the opening four months, the Lunds remained optimistic through last fall that more businesses would fill in the plaza’s empty spots.
With nine storefronts out of 23 vacant after this weekend, and six of the 10 office spaces empty on the second floor, spirits are low among the remaining tenants.
“The pompoms are on the ground,” said Tricia Lund, sitting at the wooden dining-room-style table in her store. “My cheerleading (for the plaza) is over.”
---
It’s 11:30 a.m. on an overcast Wednesday and the maintenance crew is trimming the trees and blowing debris with leaf blowers.
“Why not do this before business hours?” asked Annie Prizzi, owner of the Third Street Market, which is across from Beadniks.
“It’s just disgraceful to have this many spots empty. It’s an attr—,” Prizzi pauses mid-sentence to look out the window of her café. “It’s not even attractive anymore.”
After a few hours of running her café Wednesday morning, she closed her doors before noon after a blown fuse knocked out the power.
The two-hour outage may not be anyone’s fault, and the property manager from Welsh Cos. Florida was on site within the hour to tend to the problem, but it irritates shop owners already on edge.
“So many people are out of step here, it can’t just be the economy,” said Billy Lund.
A memo sent to the plaza’s tenants by Washington Real Estate Partners LLC on Feb. 11 acknowledged: “we can do a better job … Nevertheless, if our current tenants speak poorly of The Plaza, it is unlikely that the center will again be a fully leased, thriving retail center full of eager customers.”
“Who’s going to walk up here to find nowhere to shop?” said Tricia Lund.
The peeled-off decals of past store names leave an outline of dirt and glue on the canvas awnings of empty shops like Femme Fatale and ilSandalo.
“You can’t come in here and not think it’s poorly managed,” said Billy Lund.
The couple estimates it cost them $150,000 to build the store’s interior to the specifications of the franchise. Not only are they locked into another three years on the lease, but they said they don’t have the money to create another Beadniks.
After seven years in the same location, Iren Mayers, owner of European clothing store AnaVlad, doesn’t want to change locations and build up her clientele in a new place, either.
“I put so much money and energy. I built my client base,” she said as Christine Pace, who has worked in the Concierge Kiosk on Third Street for nine years, stops in to buy a skirt.
“People are asking what happened,” said Pace. “(The Plaza) was so beautiful. I try to be positive, but it’s so bad.”
---
The blame radiates in multiple directions, but property managers and owners of the plaza are not chiming in.
Property manager David Stasiak said Welsh Cos. Florida “is going to not make a comment at this time.”
A call to Washington Real Estate Partners LLC in Washington, D.C., was deferred by the office manager to Laura Goetz, a regional manager with Gulfstream Property Management in Boynton Beach, who corresponds with the tenants on behalf of Speyhawk Naples Inc.
Goetz and Davis Camalier, who is listed as the director of Speyhawk Naples Inc., at the Washington number for Speyhawk Naples and Washington Real Estate Properties, weren’t available for comment.
A message also was left for plaza owner Camalier at his Naples residence.
Since 1990, two years after the plaza was built, court records show dozens of cases filed over the 18-year period with regards to the property, the majority with Speyhawk Naples as the plaintiff in breach of contract, contract indebtedness and tenant eviction cases.
Most recently filed was the first stage of an eviction for Annie Prizzi, who opened up Third Street Market this past winter.
“They’re dashing dreams. I find that to be incorrigible,” says Tricia Lund of Prizzi’s situation with Speyhawk Naples.
---
But not every tenant is raging against the landlord.
“This is one of the best years we’ve ever had,” says Ani Zimonyi, director of the IAG Gallery on Broad Avenue and Gordon Drive.
The 3-year-old contemporary gallery thrives, she said, because of networking and self-promotion.
“People sometimes rely on others to make their success. … We make our own waves, our own campaigns, our own openings,” said Zimonyi.
But other tenants are left wondering: If they are paying for advertising and marketing in their monthly checks to the landlord, then why are so many of the businesses floundering?
“Are (the owners) just trying to force us out?” said Tricia Lund as her husband helped four young customers.
Business wasn’t always this way. Their first month operating in the plaza, the Lunds brought in $40,000 in revenue.
“There was a time when it was wonderful,” Tricia Lund said.
Billy Lund nods.
The only people to walk by the window in 20 minutes walk into the store; the customers, a bit to the surprise of the Lunds, stick around to make necklaces despite the fact that the power is still out.
Luanne Terlizzi, a 25-year resident of Naples, sits at the table across from Tricia Lund.
She says she doesn’t come to the plaza unless her granddaughters are in town from New Jersey.
“The stores aren’t here long enough,” says Terlizzi, watching her granddaughters Gabby, 10, and Brianna, 15, select beads.
“Outside of (this store), there’s nothing,” she said. “If there was, I would come back more often.”
---
Still open
-- Gaja Ristorante
-- BluSushi
-- Vicente of London
-- Zazou
-- IAG Gallery
-- Royal Realty Investment Group
-- Third Street Market
-- Jami’s Contemporary Shops
-- AnaVlad
-- The Englishman
-- Modern Masters Gallery
-- Lululemon
-- Tina’s 3rd Hair Salon Spa and Boutique
-- Downing-Frye Realty — Marlene Graham
Comments
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Sad. No dog in this fight but the place is dirty and run down by Naples standards. I can only assume the owner(s) wishes everyone to leave so they can do something else with this property.
#1 Posted by ZhuZhu on July 2, 2008 at 9:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Obvious management problems, but also proof that even shops that cater to higher end clients are affected by the poor economy.
#2 Posted by swfljim on July 2, 2008 at 10:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Brokenhearted businessmen will permeate the local economy. To see a family with a cute dog go through this with him, hits me hard, too.
But my question is...did he have a website that went along with his business? Did he have a business plan? Seems like this is one of those...shoulda seen this comin sorta things.
But maybe he'll have better luck on Ebay.
I've been to Third...there's still a few galleries there that I love to go to, not to mention the fabulous art there.
I feel terrible about his situation, but this is truly a result of a bad econmy, and not a bad plaza owner.
Marketing is really up to the business owner, last time I checked...with some help from the plaza owner.
#3 Posted by beetlejuice on July 2, 2008 at 10:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good luck to all those remaining. Tough situation, it seems the only places on 3rd St. South that seem to do fair anymore are the bars/restaurants. Tommy's, Harry's and Campiello's. The worse the economy gets the more people enjoy wine and spirits.
#4 Posted by Jadip811 on July 2, 2008 at 10:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Tear the plaza down and rebuild the Old Naples Hotel.
#5 Posted by billylauderdale on July 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Where are all the Euro-peons and their $$$ to rescue paradise (i.e. SW Florida)?
#6 Posted by sancho on July 3, 2008 at 12:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
sancho that's not funny because they are buying up real estate here with what's left of the value of the American dollar.
#7 Posted by beetlejuice on July 3, 2008 at 12:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
tp anyone?
#8 Posted by sancho on July 3, 2008 at 2:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This guy got it, why can't you? As he said "No one is coming!".
Got that? For all the incredible waste of money spent on infrasructure no one is coming to Naples. It's a retirement resort that was ruined by greedy bankers, mortgages sourcerors and condo flippers.
Paradise lost indeed.
Not to worry about the Panthers staying around. Now that people are leaving here as fast as their U-Hauls can carry them (see yesterdays NDN story on Lee, Collier Countys' record breaking foreclosure rates) you see what happened.
You paved over every square inch of what used to make Naples so attractive in an attempt to have a County and City Gov't with ba-zillions of dolars to fling around and now, all those people you attracted are going belly up and leaving.
Those people were here to build the houses dummies, they needed a place to live, it's the same as the wagon train industry that moved the people of the east to Califoinia, when they were all moved the wagon train industry went belly up. Imagine all those wagons being unused <sigh> but at least they could build shacks out of them.
They're aren't coming, people are leaving, there aren't any jobs and tomorrow there will be fewer.
Thank you Mistah Bush for everything you did for US.
#9 Posted by YearRoundResident on July 3, 2008 at 7:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Hmmmm.....overpriced stores filled with stuff that nobody needs go belly up. Big surprise.
#10 Posted by 12gauge on July 3, 2008 at 7:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The Plaza was never a people-friendly destination. The steep white walls without any form of overhang gave shoppers no protection at all when it rained. When the sun was out, they were blinding. The parking garage below was more gritty urban than Third Street.
The Waterside Shops pulled some of the most successful businesses -- like Kirsten's, away. The town grew, and grew younger. Many didn't realize that a certain percentage of Third Street shops were something to do for a successful professional's wife, and not a breadwinning proposition. They just looked out and saw gold in the streets, waiting to be scooped up.
In many ways, the Plaza -- along with what Fifth Avenue South has become -- could be a metaphor for Naples. The quaint and dignified Naples lifestyle, all Lily Pulitzer and Paddle-garbed, has been relegated to history's dustbins. The sharks are here, with their Armani suits and their allergies to quiet wealth. Plus, the growth is to the north. Old Naples is an anachronism, tucked away in a corner by time.
Would the Plaza's owner be so avaricious as to kill his own property in order to construct something that offers better prospects? I doubt it. Even Antarian isn't building NewerBiggerBetter these days.
The market is topped. We're waiting for the fallout. Things aren't going to be good again for lots of folks, and the glittery crowd has fancier, hotter places to go.
YearRoundResident hit it on the head. That "pretty girl who plays hard to get," as Todd Gates famously described the town, ended up in the wrong place. Somebody slipped something in her drink and now she's a long way from home. Once a pullman car traveler, as the song says, now the brakemen won't have her.
Not at these prices, anyway.
Franchised bead shops? Who was zooming whom?
#11 Posted by elnuestros on July 3, 2008 at 8:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Make that Antamarian.
#12 Posted by elnuestros on July 3, 2008 at 8:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Just got back from Italy. 2 slices of cheese pizza, 2 green salads, and 2 medium cokes at a restaurant near the Pantheon cost me 21 euros ( well over $30 bucks)! Holy Crapoli!
#13 Posted by biomanogt on July 3, 2008 at 8:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
one more item- gas over there is ( in dollars) about $ 10.57/gallon!
#14 Posted by biomanogt on July 3, 2008 at 8:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Third Street South is such a dump anyway. All the second-rate, phony themed nonsensical specialty shoppes "The Golden Thistle, What'n Tot" and such. It's pretty much a carnival way for wealthy morons, but without the rides.
#15 Posted by Bramble on July 3, 2008 at 9:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
the point of the story is the third street plaza. Its not gloom and doom. Its lack of good management. It took months and months to repair damage from Wilma. Simple things even, ones you would do right away in order to avoid large costs later. Second, the rent ain't cheap, and Naples in the middle of summer is not a busy place. Somehow, the owners don't seem to understand this, and think its a mecca of activity. Third, that whole place is falling apart, all you have to do is walk around it. The subterranean garage is a huge mistake in Florida. They might as well demolish the place, as repairs will probably cost more. A hotel might work, but not with this owner.
#16 Posted by neoneapolitan on July 3, 2008 at 9:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The Third Street South area has simply been "rode hard and put up wet" by it's property owners without any consideration towards it's future or possible diversification.
#17 Posted by outsidethebox240 on July 3, 2008 at 9:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If I owned it, I'd turn it into residential.
#18 Posted by franknbeans on July 3, 2008 at 11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
start of huge downturn for Naples....too expensive, too showy, too glitzy....used to be so nice here on 3rd, 5th etc. Mole Hole is gone, many good fairly priced restaurants forced out of business.....
#19 Posted by coolkraft on July 3, 2008 at 12:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good point, Jadip. The food establishments seem to stay fairly steady despite all the retail doom and gloom. Anybody up for a drink at Campi's??
#20 Posted by Milagro on July 3, 2008 at 12:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Naples used to be seasonal. Third street stores closed for the summer. DUH! Then the winter people are no longer here. They died. Times changed. You are correct. There were stores open for the fun of it.
Now the economy has died. Commerce with it.
There has been a big shake-up. Lots of people lost their leases. The place is going to be a ghost town and well deserved. People going to the restaurants don't have to worry. They are owned my millionaires. Just the people trying to make a living are going to be hard pressed to make it for a few years. "It's the economy stupid".
#21 Posted by jean on July 3, 2008 at 1:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yikes, I have never heard (read) such poor poor pitiful me comments. Naples will pull out of this mess. 3rd South will bounce back just fine. In time The market will dictate. Shops will come and go. 3rd and 5th are still relatively beautiful places to visit. Count your blessing people! I am in Detroit. You want to see a mess.....and insurmountable odds against recovery....don't get me started.... Naples is a Wonderful place, always has been and always will be, it is just hitting a few speed bumps
#22 Posted by sukibenson on July 3, 2008 at 1:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Im fearful that there will be many paper-overed store fronts..Naples & the community are out of money except for those very few whom make no difference anyway...the 80's on Fifth Ave are coming back..you can see it in the Fla. sales tax collections & by dining and walking the walk..2010 may start to creep better...real estate will not back most loan apps in this zip code(s)....
#23 Posted by Trexler on July 3, 2008 at 1:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Much of downtown Naples was developed for the benefit of a small number of affluent people who "reside" or visit in the town between January and May each year. It was never meant to attract the 90% of Collier's year round residents, who either work for a living or get by on a modest retirement. Catering to one demographic, even the "well to do" doesn't make very good sense for most businesses. The smoke and mirrors that were the local economy for many years have been removed, and now as anyone can see, there isn't much here.
#24 Posted by swfljim on July 3, 2008 at 3:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Here is a tip if the owners are reading--------> MINI WATERSIDE !!! You know, have nice water features and granite sidewalks along with 30 stores the common man can't shop in!! So much potential in this spot.
#25 Posted by swflsucks on July 3, 2008 at 6:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Back for more black laughs...that end of town is demographically f****** dead, ..ya just cant make it on 4 mo. a year of economic life..at least there some money flowing in Pel. Bay to Estero...and all those with discretionary income of $1,000 a mo. for bar money are now putting same in the gas tank..we'll grow out of this but there'll be a lot bodies in the swale..one local major developer sitting on $200 mil of cash debt has not sold a thing in 10 mo....go figure...
#26 Posted by Trexler on July 3, 2008 at 7:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Waterside shops and the future Mercato will do damage to the Old Naples business community...
#27 Posted by dooley on July 3, 2008 at 8:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
#27 Posted by swfljim You hit the nail on the head EXACTLY.
It will get back to basics again before too long. 5th Ave. S and 3rd. Street S. will adjust their rents accordingly when businesses are still folding and very few are left. Poor management isn't going to help the situation .
#28 Posted by Jadip811 on July 3, 2008 at 11:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
From day one I never found any shop there worth more than one look...except The Good Life for that hard-to-find kitchen gadget. I couldn't afford to do that too often though. Most shops in the area, 3rd and 5th, too snooty and expensive and exposed to the elements for me. Guess I'm a mall shopper...enclosed mall that is. Make it easy and comfortable please.
#29 Posted by Sue on July 6, 2008 at 4:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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