Meadowmont Village tenants feeling restricted

Shop owners at Meadowmont Village will be billed $1,056 for “background music” this year.

The problem: Tenants said they’ve never heard a note outside their stores.

The background music is one of several fees some tenants are calling erroneous and excessive, causing many of them to complain and others to consider leaving the development.

The expenses, in part, are for services that the shopping center’s landlord, Developers Diversified Realty Corp., says it provided for the development’s grounds.

Yet many tenants say they have not seen evidence of what they’ve paid for.

Developers Diversified Realty, based in Ohio, owns about 660 shopping centers across the Americas. The company did not return multiple calls for comment.

James White, president of the board of the Meadowmont Community Association, said the vast majority of merchants have issues with the realty corporation.

“The fees are excessive compared with the previous two owners,” he said.

Store owners are now contacting Chapel Hill town officials.

A meeting between Developers Diversified Realty representatives and Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt is in the works, said Dwight Bassett, the town economic development officer.

A private tenants’ meeting is scheduled for Thursday to discuss the excess fees.

Along with the background music, store owners are also being charged for awning repairs and snow removal that several tenants said never happened.

Ruthann Thomas, owner of clothing store Scout and Molly’s, said she paid for the expenses out of her pocket. She said the fees can total tens of thousands of dollars annually, depending on the square footage of the tenant’s lease.

“A lot of us are having to depend on ancillary funding,” she said.

Annette Girman, co-owner of the Studio 91 art gallery and lounge, said she and her husband are moving their store from Meadowmont Village to Glen Lennox Shopping Center.

She said the realty corporation has sent letters to tenants threatening eviction if they refuse to pay fees.

“We felt like we needed to make a move, and it solely was due to what the landlord is doing to business owners,” she said. “My husband and I live here in Meadowmont, and when we moved here five years ago, we fell in love with this area. It was a hard decision to make.”

Girman said the problems with the fees began two and a half years ago. Tenants tried to remedy the situation by contacting the company, but when they couldn’t negotiate a resolution, they hired a lawyer, she said.

After initial success, she said, the problems returned.

East West Partners president Roger Perry, whose company developed Meadowmont, said he has tried to buy the shopping center from the realty company, and would still like to, but they have been unresponsive to his propositions.

He said he tried to tell the company that the development needs a lot of attention from its management.

“I quickly figured out that it wasn’t going to get it,” he said.



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