The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian retailer yesterday said high rental rates combined with the ongoing uncertainty over COVID-19 restrictions had given it no choice but to exit its space at the Mall at Marathon.

Gabrielle Armaly, owner/operator of Jean Junction, said the retailer was "currently closed down until further notice next year. The Mall rent is expensive and, because, you know, the lockdown, on and off. When you have a lockdown that don't necessarily mean your bills stop.

“Our lease was up and, because our lease was up, I made the decision to shut it. Because if I go to sign on for another five years, what if this COVID-19 continues for another year or God knows when. I would really be in debt. So, I had to make a hard decision to say I can either pull from my savings and try to hang on, or I could just shut it down.”

Ms Armaly spoke out after a Mall at Marathon executive said the few tenant departures it has suffered to-date have not been directly related to COVID-19's fall-out.

Carla Moss-Fitzgerald, the retail hub's marketing director, said: “With regard to the COVID-19 situation and the economic downturn, we haven't had that many stores leave for that reason. We had two stores whose leases have come to an end and they've declined to re-sign, and those were major stores - the Shoe Depot and Jean Junction.

“However, they also had other things that they were looking into and other things that are going on within their store, so they've made the decision that they weren't going to renew. It wasn't so much the economic downturn at that time because those stores had planned their departure prior to the big lockdown that came.

"We had a few of the smaller stores [leave]. There was a massage kiosk and a virtual reality thing, because if you're not able to come out and touch and feel and what not, those smaller kiosks have had to recently close due to COVID-19.”

Ms Moss-Fitzgerald's comments on the larger retailers, though, are contradicted by what Tribune Business was told earlier this year. Egan Kemp, president of Eunison Company, the Shoe Depot parent, told Tribune Business in April that it had made “the hard call” to end its 30-year presence at the Mall at Marathon after being placed “in an impossible position” by its landlord during lease renewal talks.

He said it would have been “imprudent and unwise” to extend the lease beyond its expiry in a post-COVID-19 environment because “all options given us” involved rental rate increases.

“To be clear we have been Mall tenants since the very beginning in the late 1980s... growing from one bay into a three-bay single store of approximately 4,221 square feet,” Mr Kemp said in e-mailed responses to this newspaper’s questions. “Unfortunately, the Mall has put us in an impossible position.

“Our existing lease expires on April 30. Our discussions on lease renewal were not successful. We expected that the landlord would take a ‘tenant retention’ approach and factor in the current COVID-19 climate and the dire economic reality of the next several months/years to offer some measure of compromise.

“However, we felt their final offers were not reasonable and instead included periodic increases, while only offering discretionary abatement on a month-to-month basis at their sole discretion, and without any legal protection in the lease itself during the crisis,” he added.

“In planning for business into the future, and anticipating the reality of a COVID-19 impacted world, it would be imprudent and unwise to sign a long or short-term lease at the same pre-COVID-19 rent and which also includes increases like this. So, we made the hard call not to renew the lease, which means closing the store.”

Ms Armaly, also reacting to Ms Moss-Fitzgerald’s claim, said yesterday: “Well, yeah, they would say that, but we had to close down because of COVID-19. Their rent is $13,000 a month, and I want to thank God, they gave us half price, which was $6,000. But if you're on curb-side, or you're not making no income at all, that's a lot of money to still be paying out.”

Complaining that it was difficult to control customers when she was offering a 75 percent-off sale, Ms Armaly said: “The police said if you don't control the crowd, you're going to get charged $10,000. So I was like, let me shut this door now because the last thing I need is a fine.

"You can't control it, so I'm not going to tolerate that. It's not your business any more. That is government, because government has to dictate to you how and when you can open, and when you can't open How many people you can have in a store. And if you only have allowed 10 people in store, you're not going to make it.”

Ms Moss-Fitzgerald, meanwhile, added: “We're hoping that most stores can continue to hold on. At this time, I'm not quite sure of the exact numbers of stores that are in the Mmall, because we do count the smaller kiosks and there are also stores within stores.

"Aliv has the Western Union and such. Then there is the tattoo parlour that also does Cash for Gold. So there are a number of stores within stores that are counted as separate entities. So we’re in the area of about 90 to 95, including small kiosks and stores, within the Mall.”