The new owners of the Sundial shopping plaza in downtown St. Petersburg are tussling with the owner of the AMC Sundial 12 movie theater in the courts.
The Sundial owners claim that the theater’s owners are using “obstructionism” and “thinly veiled delay tactics” to slow the new owner’s renovation plans for the shopping center, filings show.
Last month, the owner of the movie theater, Florida 2005 Theaters LLC, sued the mall operator in Pinellas County 6th district circuit court for what it claimed was a violation of their existing easement agreement.
The agreement was first forged with the theater’s former owners, Muvico Entertainment LLC. It required most restaurants to be located on the second floor of the complex and barred significant changes to the Sundial’s common areas without Muvico’s consent. In court records, the current owner said it is “successor in interest to Muvico,” and that Sundial owners are still subject to the easement.
In January, the theater owners learned the Sundial’s renovation plans included space for an open-air bar, which sparked months of discussions between the companies. Ally Capital Group, a Tampa-based real estate investment firm is partnering with Paradise Ventures, a St. Petersburg-based firm on the renovations.
The theater owners feared the bar would detract from the AMC’s family environment and would affect movie sales. They also complained about a walkway to the theater entrance that was blocked off amid construction, court records show.
“In over 20 years of ownership at this location, it has been the experience of Florida 2005 Theaters that establishments generating a high percentage of revenue from alcohol sales have a detrimental impact on the surrounding tenants,” an attorney for the theater wrote to Michael Connor, president and CEO of Paradise Ventures.
Renovation for the Sundial, located on the 100 block of Second Avenue North, include multimillion-dollar improvements to revitalize the “once upscale retail destination into a modern mixed-use urban destination,” according a news release from 2023, when the plans were announced. The developers declined to say just how much the renovation will cost. But the plans for the center include significant upgrades to the courtyard with a large outdoor bar and communal green space.
Paradise Ventures and Ally Capital Group purchased the Sundial from local businessperson Bill Edwards for $27.5 million in 2022. Edwards had owned the 85,357-square-foot shopping center since 2011, and made significant upgrades. The shopping complex was originally built in 2000 and was called BayWalk.
The theater owners claim that the Sundial owners would not acknowledge that the theater’s permission was required for the changes. The company has now asked the court to order restaurant construction to halt, and sought other damages.
Calls and emails to the property owners and their attorneys by the Tampa Bay Times were not returned.
In a countersuit filed this week, Sundial owners rebut several of the theater owners’ claims. Among them, the Sundial owners say that the restaurant planned for the courtyard is not a new space at all, but a vacant space formerly occupied by Locale Market. The Sundial owners secured a new tenant for the space, Forbici Modern Italian.
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At the time of Locale Market’s closure, the countersuit claims, it was understood that the space would be filled by another food vendor. The easement also includes a line stating permission for such changes should not be “unreasonably withheld or delayed,” court documents said.
The Sundial owners also claim they gave theater owners notice of the plan a full year before their lawsuit claims.
“Without valid justification and despite dialogue spanning the course of over a year, Florida 2005 has violated the (easement agreement) by unreasonably withholding approval and consent of PV’s plans for the Forbici Restaurant,” the countersuit states.
The Sundial owners said adding Forbici Modern Italian to the space would be mutually beneficial, and that the disagreement has now cost them revenue, rent and business relationships.
