This is a new one: AMC sued - using space but mall says lease was terminated

[William Kucharski]

The redeveloper of the Conestoga Mall in Grand Island, NE has filed a civil lawsuit against a movie theater, claiming they are continuing to occupy the space despite their lease being terminated.

The civil lawsuit was filed Friday in Hall County Court by Woodsonia against AMC Theaters.

[Armand Daiguillon]

Well, this is very much a legal matter. The question being can the city's CRA terminate a lease ?
The landlord was not able to legally terminate it without reaching a termination agreement first, which AMC declined, which "seems" to be there right per the lease that binds everything now.
AMC declines, so the landlords go to the city to intervene and cancel the lease - can the city do that ? .... that I guess will be for a judge to decide.
Important points here are that AMC did not violate their lease to begin with - the mall wants to force a relocate of their anchor tenants.
Unless the CRA has some very odd powers, this usually can not be done. The article mentions using "iminent domain" as justification for terminating the lease, but typically declaring immenent domain is not so simple.
I'll be curious to see what happens.

[Sam Chavez]

Eminent domain?

[Armand Daiguillon]

Eminent domain?

Its when a a govt entity reclaims land. There are usually a lot of rules associated with it.
You see it a lot for public works projects like roads and sidewalks.

[Randy Stankey]

Regardless of any eminent domain or other legal claims, if AMC stayed, they'd be one of only three tenants left in the mall.

Why would they want to continue to operate a theater in a dead mall?

[Harold Hallikainen]

Eminent domain is an interesting issue. It comes down to the fifth amendment of the US Constitution which prohibits " private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." This appears to put two conditions on the "taking" of private property: just compensation and "public use." The public use criteria was expanded in Kelo v New London where the property was awarded to another private company instead of put to public use (building a park or some other public facility). The court said that if the taking benefited the public through the benefits of redevelopment, that is a public use. More about this case at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v..._of_New_London .

[Armand Daiguillon]

Regardless of any eminent domain or other legal claims, if AMC stayed, they'd be one of only three tenants left in the mall.

Why would they want to continue to operate a theater in a dead mall?

My guess is they're making money .... if they weren't i'm sure they'd be happy to take the offer.
Seems to be the same for the other anchors ....its not just AMC none of the anchors are taking the offer - there must be a reaon.

[Armand Daiguillon]

Eminent domain is an interesting issue. It comes down to the fifth amendment of the US Constitution which prohibits " private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." This appears to put two conditions on the "taking" of private property: just compensation and "public use." The public use criteria was expanded in Kelo v New London where the property was awarded to another private company instead of put to public use (building a park or some other public facility). The court said that if the taking benefited the public through the benefits of redevelopment, that is a public use. More about this case at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v..._of_New_London .

Yeah .... this is a weird one.

[Randy Stankey]

... there must be a reason.

Well, there's plenty of parking!

[William Kucharski]

Regardless of any eminent domain or other legal claims, if AMC stayed, they'd be one of only three tenants left in the mall.

Why would they want to continue to operate a theater in a dead mall?

There have been many theaters I've seen that have not only done well at a dead mall, eventually the mall was torn down around them and the theater remained.

The bottom line as others have stated, is the lease is likely minimal and thus the profit margins high.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed with Harold on eminent domain and 5A. The article leaves a lot of questions unanswered about this. What does Woodsonia want to do with the property, and what, precisely, is the Community Redevelopment Authority's role in this? My guess is that if they want to raze the mall and build a public park or a freeway on it, then ED (of the legal variety!) would be constitutional, but that if they want to put up a block of condos or a business park (or sell the land to another developer to do so), it would not.

In any case and as others have pointed out, AMC must be doing good business at that site to want to continue to operate it in the middle of what sounds like a "Dawn of the Dead" mall.

[Martin McCaffery]

It could all be as simple as AMC holding out for Woodsonia to buy out their lease, aka an “amenable solutions" at a price AMC thinks it can get.

[Lyle Romer]

My guess is they're making money .... if they weren't i'm sure they'd be happy to take the offer.
Seems to be the same for the other anchors ....its not just AMC none of the anchors are taking the offer - there must be a reaon.

At least not losing money and looking for a bigger offer!