FORT PIERCE – The Fort Pierce City Commission Monday officially terminated the long-term lease with the operator of the downtown waterfront operator of Crabby’s Dockside restaurant.
Commissioners deferred action on whether or not to try to collect nearly $334,000 of unpaid rent and property taxes from Winking Starfish LLC, of St. Petersburg, the winning bidder in 2018, for an initial 20-year lease on the Avenue A property.
The commission appeared to unanimously agree with District 2 Commissioner Michael Broderick’s assessment that “the heartbeat stopped weeks ago” in efforts to find a new firm to take over the Crabby’s lease from Winking Starfish. City Manager Richard Chess said an unnamed concern that was considered a possible takeover candidate for the lease backed away when it found the site did not come with food service equipment.
Chess said it also asked the city to forgive up to a year of monthly lease payments as conditions of the lease assignment.
Instead, commissioners decided to terminate the agreement with Winking Starfish and develop a new request for proposals (RFP) to find a new operator.
“We have other entities interested,” Chess said.
Meanwhile, Winking Starfish’s tab with the city continues to mount and officials said terminating the lease does not erase bills for unpaid rent and property taxes. The city has contended that the multi-million-dollar building Winking Starfish paid to build now becomes city property.
“The heartbeat (of this deal) stopped weeks ago,” Broderick said. “We need to move on. Termination of the lease needs to take place immediately. We can defer the decision on payment to the future.’
District 1 Commissioner Arnold Gaines agreed.
“This has gone on too long,” Gaines said. “The waiting game needs to stop. We need to terminate the lease, get a new RFP out and once somebody is in there, the ability to collect (from Winking Starfish) is still there.”
Monday’s motion to terminate the existing contract passed unanimously.
Crabby’s closed without warning in February, after making an unsuccessful appeal for the city to forgo multiple months of rent payments.
In September, commissioners decided to give the current tenant another month to wrap up a lease assignment to a new operator. At that time, City Manager Richard Chess did not name the possible new leaseholder, but said “they have experience in this particular business.”
As of Oct. 1, city officials say Winking Starfish has not paid monthly rent to the city for the past year. That amounts to $192,019.77 in uncollected rent and another $9,600.99 in late fees.
In addition, the city paid the last three years of property taxes that were supposed to be the tenant’s responsibility.