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The owners of two businesses say they suffered after the city gave away a public lot.
By CHRISTINA HEADRICK
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 10, 2001
CLEARWATER -- One afternoon in July 1997, Sarah Brown Caudell was working in her father's coin shop on Cleveland Street when a neighboring store owner came running in and told her to look outside.
City workers were removing the meters in a 25-space public parking lot that both the Brown family and neighboring fly-fishing shop owner, John Homer, had depended on for more than 50 years to serve their downtown properties on the 600 block of Cleveland.
Soon the parking lot off Park Street, just behind their buildings, was barricaded from public use. The city had given the land to the owners of a nearby office building called the Atrium without advertising or conducting a hearing to get rid of the land, as the city charter mandates.
"(We got) not a letter, not a personal visit, not a phone call, nothing" from the city, Caudell testified in court Tuesday in the trial for the lawsuit that her family and Homer filed in 1998.
Both Caudell and Homer want the city to compensate them for damage to their businesses, which they say was caused when, without notice, the city gave the public lot to Atrium at Clearwater Ltd.
The businesses' attorney, Margot Pequignot, argued Tuesday that the damages could be substantial. Pequignot suggested that Homer's saltwater fly-fishing business alone had lost $1-million in possible sales for lack of adequate nearby parking since 1997.
In its defense, the city admitted that mistakes were made in the real estate transaction with the Atrium. Clearwater Assistant City Attorney Richard Hull told jurors in his opening remarks that the city failed to follow its charter's rules in giving the parking lot to the Atrium's owners.
The city charter states that Clearwater should have declared the parking lot surplus land and then held a hearing about its disposal. The city forgot to do that, Hull said, but the mistake was not intentional.
Hull argued that neither downtown property owner was actually damaged. People have continued to rent space in the buildings, and there is other public parking nearby for the businesses, Hull said.
Hull and Pequignot spent Tuesday in court quizzing a series of businessmen who rented storefronts in the Brown family's building about the adequacy of nearby parking. Some had received complaints from their clients about parking since the city had given the nearby public lot to the Atrium.
"The parking has become a little hateful," complained Ronald Richmond, a mortgage broker who rents offices in the Brown family's building at 617 Cleveland. Richmond says his business has had to find other locations for meetings because clients have had trouble parking.
This week's trial is just the latest chapter in a saga involving the Atrium office building, attorneys for both sides explained Tuesday.
In 1993, the city purchased the office building with the hope of putting City Hall there. But after a commission election, the city sold the building.
As part of the sale, the city agreed to give the Atrium's owners the option to purchase a publicly financed garage and a 31-space parking lot adjacent to the garage, which was connected to the Atrium by a suspended walkway.
In 1995, the Atrium's owners demanded to buy the garage but could not agree on a price with the city. The Atrium sued Clearwater.
To settle the lawsuit in 1997, the city agreed to give the Atrium the 25-space lot behind the downtown businesses now at the center of this week's trial in exchange for being allowed to keep the 31-space lot that was closer to a city office building.
The city also transferred the garage to the Atrium for $500,000, Hull said.
Hull suggested Clearwater residents got a good deal because the city kept the bigger parking lot.
The trial continues today and is expected to conclude by Thursday, attorneys for both sides said.
- Information from Times files contributed to this report.