Pantera’s Pizza, at 7222 Manchester Road, has announced it has lost its lease and will close later this month. Though an employee said the new lease would quadruple the rent, the building’s owner contacted 40 South News and said that’s not true.
Mark Rubin, of Aldan Investments, identified himself by email to 40 South News as the owner. He gave further information by phone Wednesday.
“Certainly it was increased rent; it wasn’t anywhere near quadruple rent. It was way closer double than quadruple,” Rubin said.
He said the previous rent was “way under market. We put some feelers out and everyone thinks we’re right on,” Rubin said. “We offered it to him at a lower price than that. We’d like him to stay rather than have to find a new tenant, but obviously it didn’t work out for his finances, which is fine. We’ll find someone else.”
Rubin said it was a business decision on his company’s part.
“Seems like a nice guy; ran a nice business for a long time, but for what we paid for the building, the economics didn’t work with the current rent,” he said.
He said he doesn’t know what will go into the building, which will remain.
Mike you are right on target. The mayor and city council boast that they have “lowered residential property taxes” for the last few years. But what they don’t tell you is that they only lowered our residential property taxes a few cents, mainly so they can say they lowered taxes, come-on —- while they jacked up the commercial property taxes. This type of tax manipulation is not good for Maplewood.
What with the limited parking at the site it seems that the new building owner already had his best tenant in the pizza delivery outfit. Bet he will regret running Pantera’s out around August. Maybe another nail salon could use the space, LOL!
That building has the perfect business in it right now. Whether the rent is doubled or quadrupled he’s making a dumb choice. The building won’t necessarily be suitable for a business that can pay a higher rent and he’s turning away a rent paying tenant. Just short-sighted and bad for the neighborhood.
The math here really shouldn’t be that difficult. I’m trusting the “quadrupled” rather than the “way closer to doubled than quadrupled”.
Classic move by a typical real estate jerk. Thanks for running a St Louis institution out of business.
“Way closer double than quadruple” is still a significant amount. It’s likely true that costs are higher for the new building owner if there is bank financing and higher property values. The previous owner probably owned the building for years and didn’t have as much money in it.
Sounds like he paid too much for the building.
“Seems like a nice guy” = “never even met the tenant, don’t care, want higher rent, even if we go vacant for months or years like some of our neighbors”
That is what I thought too. Sometimes things aren’t worth what people want for the property that is in Maplewood. I love this town but property values went up way too fast and the only people who benefited was the county and city government due to increased property taxes.