After negotiating contractual terms in real time with the attorney and the manager of the Green Lion Cafe during a nearly two-hour segment of the Palm Coast City Council Tuesday evening, the council voted 4-1 to give its administration 30 to 45 days to resolve differences over a new or amended five-year lease with the restaurant at the city-owned Palm Harbor Golf Club.
The city conceded that it has–and continues–to lose money through its current lease, which requires the Green Lion to pay only $600 a month in rent and no utility costs. “Currently the city is at a loss,” Council member John Fanelli said, when utilities are calculated. “We’re actually paying Green Lion to be there.”
The aim of the new lease, in Mayor David Alfin’s words, is to ensure that within 24 months the city will “no longer bear any additional expense in the operation of the Green Lion,” and that the financial arrangement will at least bring the city to a break-even, or “neutral” point.
“We will look at the shared utilities, who will pay for what, and then we will assess a value or percentage of that, and we will try to get to that in their rental amount,” Neysa Borkert, the city attorney, specified. The current negotiated proposal from the city’s side is to charge $1,543 monthly rent starting in September, rising 3 percent a year, to $1,737.
The meeting’s negotiations, which included Green Lion attorney John Ferguson of Cobb Cole, the Daytona Beach law firm, and at one point Christopher Marlow, who manages the family-run restaurant (the family also owns the Golden Lion in Flagler Beach), were amicable but strictly business-like, with a touch of impatience from Marlow and repeated exasperation verging on anger from Council member Eddie Branquinho, who cast the dissenting vote. He remains staunchly opposed to the deal, calling it a money-loser on top of money-losing years. He did not abide two more years before breaking even.
“You agree to lose money for the next two years?” Branquinho said, directing his exasperation at Alfin. “Why not now?”
“Let’s make the people of Palm Coast be proud of us,” he said, “because lately, they’re not too happy with us. And we know it. And if we’re going to add this decision to the decisions we’ve been making in the recent past, then I don’t know if belong here. That’s it.” Later in the discussion he would despondently repeat that he no longer belonged on the council. (Branquinho has opted not to run for re-election.)
“With this new agreement, we’ll be losing far less money than we are today,” Council member Nick Klufas said. Klufas is the only council member who was on the panel in 2017 when the original lease was signed. At the time the Green Lion was given six months’ free rent, then charged $500 a month. Back then, Klufas reminded his colleagues, the club was losing around a quarter million dollars a year, the restaurant was a dilapidated wreck, the city wasn’t sure there’d be a club five years hence, and the Green Lion was the only serious bidder when Palm Coast issued a request for proposal to revive the restaurant space, which occupies a triple-wide trailer on the golf grounds. The club has turned around. It’s not necessarily losing money. But it’s not hemorrhaging it, either, and the Green Lion–the number one restaurant in popularity in palm Coast, according to Trip Advisor–played a role in the turn-around.
Jason DeLorenzo, the city’s development director, had for nearly nine months until February been the point man on renegotiating the overly generous, original lease terms with the Green Lion. The negotiations were nearing a conclusion, with a rent increase considerably steeper than the one the council was considering Tuesday, when three council members–Branquinho, Victor Barbosa, who is no longer on the council, and Ed Danko–threw a wrench in the negotiations by charging that the city’s deal with the restaurant was inadmissible even in its renegotiated form. The term “sweetheart deal” was bandied about, and the council agreed to end its lease and issue a new request for proposal. (See: “Palm Coast Turns Nasty Against Green Lion Café Lease After 5 Successful Years and Turnaround at Palm Harbor Golf.”)
The reaction from the public and the business was so swift and so incensed that within a week the council reversed course and agreed to return to the negotiating table with the Green Lion. Tuesday was the council’s first chance since to look at the results and decide whether, and how, to go forward toward a new lease. While differences remain, many of those, especially regarding utility costs, were worked out then and there.
But there remained some lack of clarity even in crucial matters even as Klufas said that “there’s nothing on my end that I could see being a sticking point that couldn’t be negotiated between both parties, and the rate of rent seems to be fair.”
For example, the city will install a separate electricity meter for the business, will charge for propane use and will charge about half the cost of water usage (as part of the rent, not in addition to rent), which is shared between the restaurant and other city functions in the trailer. But it wasn’t clear whether utility costs would be paid separately or whether they were to be incorporated in the rent charge.
To Marlow, they’re inclusive of rent, costs he equated to roughly $1,750 a month. “By year two, within 13 months, sir, you will be making a profit,” he told Branquinho. In other words, rent would equate to utility costs.
“That’s assuming the utility bills remain the same,” the city attorney told Marlow, “over an extended period of time and there’s no increase in the cost of electric or water, which rate changes happen, so I don’t know that we can necessarily say that. But in simple terms, that’s what you meant, right?”
“We’re paying you the increased rent. How you handle the money is up to you,” Marlow said, meaning that some of the money would go toward utilities. He was not offering to split utility costs over and above rent payments. His attorney echoed him, saying the per-square-foot rental cost would have to be adjusted downward if utilities are charged. “So if Green Lion is going to pay utilities, it should be something less than $9 to $10,” he said.
But that wasn’t how the city had written the revised lease, which called for rent based on $10 a foot (the Green Lion is still disputing that formula) plus electricity, propane, internet, phone, and now water. If those costs are now incorporated in the rent, it would be a significant departure from the city’s original approach. On the other hand, a fair market value analysis by Cornelia Manfre, the commercial Realtor, who presented her findings to the council, projected rent costs of $9 to $10 a square foot inclusive of utilities. The city paid Manfre $1,000 for the analysis. (See: “Palm Coast Council Tries Again With Green Lion Café, Almost Tripling Rent, But Differences Remain.”)
Branquinho had issues with water-bill costs and wanted two water meters–one for the water used by the restaurant, the other metering the water used by other functions in the trailer, which are not connected to the restaurant. “Having two separate meters for this would be very expensive to do,” DeLorenzo said–beyond the fact that the restaurant has a shared bathroom with the club. “How do you meter a shared bathroom?”
Other details are less contentious.
The restaurant wants to open two hours later on most days, except on Saturday. The council was divided on that count, with some council members reluctant to impose on the Green Lion specific hours of operation or other procedural ways of running the business, and others wanting the hours to align with when golfers tend to be on the grounds, which means early morning hours.
The lease is for five years, with a five-year renewal. The city was not keen on giving the Green Lion a first right of refusal after the first five years, because it would have the city bidding out the space, potentially only to have the Green Lion resolve differences. That would send a bad message not only to those who may have filed a bid, but to those looking at the way business is done in Palm Coast. The proposed lease gives both sides a “termination for cause” clause, replacing a “termination for convenience” clause, though “cause” has not yet been defined.
The council was fine either with a 3 percent increase per year in rent, or tying the annual increase based on the annual consumer price index. “It’s a candy store at this point. They’re paying us rent. They should be able to run it the way they wish to run it,” Council member Ed Danko said.
“The only way this agreement survives is if there is value for both parties,” Alfin said–both for Palm Coast and for the Green Lion. “I’m of an opinion that I would like to see a conclusion to this discussion at the earliest possible moment,” with direction to the city administration to resolve remaining differences. Those differences, he said, “will not have a significant effect on the income produced or received. That’s a pathway forward.”
Ferguson, the Green Lion’s attorney, concurred with Alfin. “Right now what I see is the city has exactly what it wanted five years ago when it went out to bid: it has a great destination restaurant, number one rated” on Trip Advisor, “and from my client’s perspective they have a contract in place that says they have the right to extent for five more years. It doesn’t say that they have to revise terms, they don’t have to pay more rent, they don’t have to pay propane. But, like you said, mayor, it needs to be good on both sides. So there is no obligation for them to agree to any of this, but they’ve already agreed to pay fair market value.”
In fact, the council was prepared to sever the lease had the Green Lion not agreed to go to fair market value, in essence conceding what the city now sees as its obligation to pay more rent, propane and the rest of it.
Ferguson cited a few remaining “gating issues” to work out: whether the two sides will agree to an amendment or a new contract (Ferguson is pushing for an amendment, calling it “cleaner”), how they will figure in electricity costs, what specific square footage is calculated, and lease terms. The Green Lion wants a five-year term, renewable for another five years.
Recently, the city requested all of the restaurant’s financial documents. Ferguson said those documents have never been turned in previously, and should not, because they would become public record. If the rent was based on a percentage of the revenue, he’d have not objected. But it isn’t, he said, removing the reason for financial records to be turned over. Other issues were not deal-breakers, whether it’s installing a grease collector at the restaurant’s expense or getting the city to provide a dumpster closer to the property.
The city had not calculated a “break-even” point until Alfin asked for it. Alfin agreed with Branquinho in that regard: he did not want a lease that would have the city in perpetual loss mode. “There’s nobody up here that’s going to be OK with putting a burden on the taxpayers for another business to make money. It doesn’t make sense,” Alfin said, in contrast with the way it had been for the past five years, and may yet be for another two depending on the outcome of remaining negotiations.
Watch the Green Lion discussion:
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Meredith Martin Davis says
If the council is so keen on these details at The Green Lion, why doesn’t the council review the details of the deal with Captain’s BBQ over at Bing’s Landing? Favoritism should be something that is transparent, right?
Walt Hooker says
Captain’s BBQ is on Flagler County property, not City of Palm Coast.
Denali says
Uhh, Bing’s Landing is a county property and the Green Lion is a city property. Yes, both have been terribly mismanaged by their respective governmental agencies and both involve restaurants on public property and yes, the government agencies involved are both full of know-nothing, self-serving self appointed Gods but that is where the similarities end. I do see how you could be confused.
BILL says
HEY COUNCIL: WE TAXPAYERS ARE LOOKING FOR A BREAK EVEN WITH THE GOLF COURSE! HOW ABOUT GETTING HONEST WITH THEIR ACTUAL INTAKE, AND LET US OFF THE HOOK.
Robjr says
After the city sold the citizens a snow job to establish the golf course and it was a loser since the day it opened the former mayor, bless his soul, changed the golf course from an enterprise fund to an amenity. The red ink is now hidden.
It should have been sold/closed long ago.
Here is an excellent article detailing the pie in the sky endeavor.
https://flaglerlive.com/89608/golf-scam-pt/
Palmcoaster says
Should they raise rent that high to rent a trailer. People are comparing rents to a standard building or residential dwelling which it is not. How much would you pay to rent space in a trailer? Green Lion is getting screwed.
marlow says
The Council directed the City employees to put out to bid in February for a FMV (fair market Value) analysis to be done to determine what the correct amount of Rent should be charged for the Double Wide/Green Lion Cafe.
They hired Cornelia Manfre to conduct the Study. Her findings were presented at this weeks Commission meeting. She found no similar property sadly, as you need to compare a 30 year old Double Wide trailer, with no signage, no ‘anchor or box store’, no cars passing, shared space of bathrooms, common areas, entrance ways, no dumpster on premise, insufficient hot water for dish washing, and so much more.
The ONE similar Palm Coast concession agreement to compare was “Copper Lotus Bistro” at the Town Center Medical Building, Pay ZERO rent. It is classified as an ammenity for the Building.
Mrs Manfre used other City leased Properties (Hi Jackers, Bull Creek, Captains BBQ) to make a valuation and came up with $10 square foot inclusive of all utilities. A 10 year lease and more……
Her presentation was well done, using factual charts, overhead screens with reports and a very thorough investigation of comparibles ….
It was basically dismissed as “her opinion” and that was that.
$1000 was spent by the City of Palm Coast to have the FMV prepared.
FMV says
That was a very long 2:10 hours of video to watch!
Funny. The City asked and paid $1,000 for an informed opinion of a fair rental value for the Green Lion. Cornelia came back with $9-10 per sq ft inclusive of (I take that to mean including all) utilities. Yet the Council (one member in particular) wants to break even. The Marlowe family seems to be bending over backwards to make this work but the City apparently doesn’t believe the informed and experienced realtor they chose that’s been in the business for 42 years and decided their opinion was better. It looks like the City will take $10/sqft PLUS some (maybe half or who knows what) of the utilities. The City could even go to some expense to install 2 electric meters and great expense to install two water meters to insure Green Lion pays their fair share. Green Lion did say they would pay for the propane (City said it averaged about $550/month) as the only user of propane. I don’t know how anyone would split the restroom electric and water bills.
It would appear that the City and Green Lion made a deal 5 years ago when the risk was mostly on the Marlowe’s. No one knew if the venture would be successful or not. There was significant risk on both sides. However, the Marlowe’s did make the Green Lion a success. Appears the City doesn’t like successful businesses. The Palm Harbor Golf Course is near break even now according to Councilman Klufas. Did the Green Lion’s success contribute to that? Like the utilities, it’s difficult to measure.
I wonder why the Council voted themselves a significant raise and funded a very expensive water park. Where’s the break even point on those items?
Companies make profits, Governments do not; they provide services to their constituents. The former usually raises prices and take other actions to remain profitable. The latter (city and county, at least), should divide required revenue by the assessed valuation to determine a tax or millage rate (or manage the required revenue to keep the tax/millage rate more or less even with the the changes in assessed valuation.) Do any of the City’s departments break even or just provide services? Government is tough, being an elected official wanting to be reelected is likely tougher.
Hope the 30-45 days is sufficient time to negotiate a contract that both the City and Green Lion can agree to.
Therese Bennett says
Well put! Only additional question I have is why Council is beating this horse dead over a few thousand dollars – perhaps to get us to forget their $3.5 Million mistake with Waste Pro, their 10x salary increase (vs the Green Lion contract) or their woeful neglect of our roads that could cost us millions?!? (Never mind that splash pad)
Get real and get a sense of perspective please, PC Council.
Meredith Martin Davis says
So typical from this backwater council
Greg says
From past experiences with the city, don’t trust them!
Donald J Trump says
We ate there last week and our bill was $95, based on the facts that we had 1 coke, 1 mixed drink, 1 oder of fried fish and a small steak This business is taking in over market revenue while paying way under market driven expenses. The place was packed at 5:30 pm, I think you would need to have an armored truck to cart away the money being stolen from the city. There is no reason for the city to not to make money on this or any other business deal it enters into on behalf of the taxpayers.
Jimbo99 says
Apparently we have no shortage of those who can afford to pay that much for a meal (including yourself/family). If the place was packed, sounds like too many are overpaid & overcharging others for something or another. Isn’t Capitalism great ?
Rico Christiani says
So , you’re essentially complaining that your check was too high for the food received ?
Were you not given menus before ordering ?
Were prices not displayed of the menu ?
YOU made the decision to eat steak instead of a grilled cheese sandwich !
Its no one’s fault but your own that YOU “have champaign tastes on a beer budget”!
Skibum says
After all of the fumbling and missteps by city leaders trying to rework the lease for the Green Lion which caused such a huge uproar from residents across the city who love this local gem of a restaurant, the city had better get it right this time and not try to screw the Marlowe family or do anything that will put this restaurant in jeopardy! We are all watching this very closely. One of my primary concerns is that the city see and acknowledge the value that the Green Lion has added to the city owned and run golf course, and take that into account in setting a fair lease amount. The city cannot afford to see a repeat of the hundreds of pissed off citizens packing the city council chambers again if they flub this up now, so let’s leave that in the past and move on, and cross our fingers that this will be resolved in an equitable way, with integrity and fairness befitting the elected and appointed positions we expect from our city representatives.
Crime Shouldn’t Pay says
The city needs to ensure there is improved video surveillance to dissuade any prospective turtle thieves. As there have been no FCSO newshound releases announcing the arrest of the culprits that stole “Quilty”, the turtle in front of the Green Lion is likely at risk.
The dude says
The Green Lion just needs to close it down. They don’t need this as much as the city does.
This typical of the types who we have serving on the city council. Let others take the risk and then rush in to take a share of the rewards if it succeeds.
To the city I say, if ANY of you had ANY experience in running a real business, you might understand it takes money to make money. Is that couple hundred dollars a month bankrupting the city? Does this city benefit in any way by having a smooth running, very popular amenity sitting in the middle of it? (Golf course and restaurant)
Green Lion needs to just close it down and let the city deal with re-leasing it. In three years they will probably be able to come back in at a discounted rate and bail the city out, again.
Rico Christiani says
The problem with the Green Lion “just pulling out” now is that when the Marlowes TOOK A CHANCE on the location , they were coming into the site of a previously failed , unpopular restaurant.
If the Marlowes leave now , whoever comes into that space next gets the goodwill and following among the golfers that the Marlowes spent years generating .
It would be much easier for a new startup to succeed in that location now than when the Green Lion first opened , and that’s ALL due to the time , energy , and advertising expended by the Marlowes !
The dude says
Understood.
But the Marlowes have something special that not just any hot dog vendor will have.
Even given the head start like you describe, it will be hard to capture lightning in a bottle twice in a row in that location.
If they were to vacate, there would likely be a number of failures there before another Green Lion could turn it around.
Gus says
I was very curious about how many golfers actually go to the golf course because of the green lion, so I decided to go there and find out for myself. After my investigation I have found the number to be very astonishing. After asking employees and patrons I found that less then 1% golfer play there because of the green lion. While there I notice that during prime time for golf there were no golfers eating there. Most of the patrons were older women who had no interest in golf. I ask a lot of golfers if the restaurant was the reason they play here? All said no. There said they play here because of the conditions of the course. Bottom line is that the green lion does not increase the play.