Merchants in Faneuil Hall have recently come under increased pressure from General Growth Properties, the mall corporation that collects rent from the shops in Quincy, North and South Markets.
In the last month, the GGP evicted Bombay Club after the business did not pay rent and evicted Henri’s Glassworks after a new lease agreement increased rent by 60 percent, according to an article in The Boston Globe. Kingfish Hall could also end with eviction, as the restaurant is overdue in rent by thousands of dollars.
“Business has slowed down in general for a lot of people, and especially in this time of the year it gets pretty slow and it makes it tougher to pay the bills,” said Charlie Rodgers of Bill Rodgers Running Shop in Faneuil Hall. “So they always threaten you with things like eviction if you don’t pay up.”
His brother’s shop, which has been at Faneuil Hall since 1978, just received a notice regarding overdue rent, Rodgers said.
“There are other restaurants and businesses here that, in the middle of the winter, they find it hard to pay their bills, and they’re not being particularly flexible with these folks,” Rodgers said. “We’re hoping for flexibility.”
The Rouse Corporation, which used to conduct lease agreements with merchants before GGP bought it, was easier to work with on overdue payments, Rodgers said. The amount of money merchants make fluctuates with the season and the current state of the economy has also decreased tourism.
“We worked out a lower rent for January and February,” Rodgers said. “[But] in a slow economy that little break may not be quite enough to make it easy.”
Other Faneuil Hall businesses, however, feel differently. The owners of Zuma Tex Mex Grill held a meeting with GGP and the owner said negotiations worked out well.
“Things went very well, they did very well by us and we are very pleased with it,” said Cody Baker, owner of Zuma.
City Councilor Salvatore LaMatinna, whose district includes Faneuil Hall, said no shops or merchants have contacted the city with concerns.
“The last thing I want to see in Faneuil hall is vacant space there,” he said.
In the past, LaMatinna said he has mediated problems between GGP and the merchants of Faneuil Hall, an area he said he thinks is important to tourism.
“It’s a major tourist attraction for the city of Boston, so it’s very important to our economy,” LaMatinna said. “People visit Faneuil Hall, they visit the North End, then they go to the aquarium. So a lot of other local businesses benefit from people visiting Faneuil Hall.”
The GGP refused to comment on the evictions.
“We prefer not to discuss our relationships with our retailers, nor do we discuss any specifics of our leasing process,” said David Keating, GGP Vice President of Corporate Communications, in an email.
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