Judge vetoes Best Buy at Gateway.Byline: Edward Russo The Register-Guard Best Buy, scouting the Eugene-Springfield area for a place to put a store, won't be able to move into the vacant former Emporium spot at Gateway Mall Gateway Mall may refer to:
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Albert Radcliffe of Eugene on Wednesday unplugged the hopes of a California middleman mid·dle·man n. 1. A trader who buys from producers and sells to retailers or consumers. 2. An intermediary; a go-between. to put Best Buy, the nation's largest electronics retailer, into that prominent space. Allowing Best Buy to take over the unexpired Emporium lease at the mall would violate terms of the lease, Radcliffe ruled. Also, the judge said, if Best Buy moved in, that would foul up the mall's lease with Circuit City, a major tenant and Best Buy rival, and leave the landlord at risk of being sued. Circuit City operates a stand-alone store immediately south of the main mall The Main Mall was an outdoor pedestrian shopping plaza in downtown Poughkeepsie, New York, which was in existence from 1973 until 2001. A urban renewal project designed with the intention of stopping the decline of the central business district of downtown Poughkeepsie, the mall building. Radcliffe's ruling caps a convoluted tussle over the fate of the high-profile vacant Emporium spot and Best Buy's efforts to open a store in the metro area This article is about the music production team. For the article about population centers, see metropolitan area. Metro Area are a Brooklyn-based dance music production team composed of Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani. . The Alamo Alamo Eighteenth-century mission in San Antonio, Texas, site of a historic siege of a small group of Texans by a Mexican army (1836) during the Texas war for independence from Mexico. Group, based in the San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden area, had acquired the Emporium lease in Emporium's bankruptcy proceedings bankruptcy proceedings n. the bankruptcy procedure is: a) filing a petition (voluntary or involuntary) to declare a debtor person or business bankrupt, or, under Chapter 11 or 13, to allow reorganization or refinancing under a plan to meet the debts of the party . Alamo proposed selling the lease to Best Buy, a retailer with nearly 700 stores and $21 billion in annual sales. Middlemen such as Alamo can sell unexpired leases of bankrupt firms to other retailers, in effect pushing landlords to the sidelines. Alamo stood to make a $550,000 commission if Best Buy and mall owner General Growth Properties General Growth Properties (NYSE: GGP) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust in the United States. It is based in Chicago, Illinois. History The company was founded by two brothers, Martin and Matthew Bucksbaum, in 1954. were to agree on a lease, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a draft agreement between the parties. In an interview, Alamo Group President Don Gaube said Best Buy was "very excited" about the possibility of moving into the mall. But Gaube needed an OK from Radcliffe before he could get Best Buy and General Growth to begin negotiating over lease terms. That wasn't about to happen. Chicago-based General Growth objected to Alamo's plan, fearing legal retaliation by Circuit City, which sits about 1,000 feet from the former Emporium store. By siding with Alamo "you would leave the owner of Gateway Mall hanging out horribly exposed to a Circuit City lawsuit," Wilson Muhlheim, a Eugene attorney representing General Growth, told Radcliffe. Radcliffe based his ruling on Emporium's lease with General Growth, which says the store space can only be used to sell "merchandise customarily sold in department stores This is a list of department stores. In the case of department store groups the location of the flagship store is given. This list does not include large specialist stores, which sometimes resemble department stores. ," a restriction that lasts another 18 months, along with the lease. Allowing Best Buy, which sells consumer electronics, to assume the lease would violate that requirement, Radcliffe said, "unless, of course, Best Buy wants to carry a slightly different mix of inventory." It also could give "rise to a legitimate claim by Circuit City," against General Growth, he said, because Circuit City's lease says it will be the mall's exclusive retailer of consumer home electronics. An attorney for the landlord had earlier said Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City could sue General Growth to withhold up to 50 percent of rent, plus damages based on projected sales decreases over the life of its lease, which lasts until 2029. Alamo's attorney, Albert Kennedy, said that Best Buy would not violate the department-store lease provision because home electronics are commonly sold in department stores. Further, he said, Emporium, which sold mostly clothing, didn't fit the classic definition of a department store, which sells a wide variety of merchandise. But Best Buy is more of an electronics store than a department store, Radcliffe said. |
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