Fernandina Beach City Attorney Tammi Bach said the city is responsible for business situation suffered by Brett's Waterway Cafe due to the unsafe condition of the restaurant's supporting substructure over the Amelia River.
In response to questioning by Vice Mayor David Sturges at Tuesday's city commission meeting, Bach updated commissioners on the status of settlement talks with the leaseholders of Brett's.
In August 2023, Center Street Restaurant Group, owners of Brett's Waterway Cafe, demanded a settlement for damages from the City of Fernandina Beach. They are seeking $655,000 in damages they claim are the result of negative publicity that the restaurant is not safe, the city's failure to maintain its portion of the substructure, and the loss of parking spaces. Brett's said they would sue the city if a settlement was not paid.
Sturges asked Bach if she received an opinion that the city has some sort of responsibility "which you haven't said anything about tonight."
"The city has responsibility here for a couple of reasons," Bach told the commission. "The number one reason, and everybody in town that has paid attention knows it. The city did not maintain the (supporting) pile caps. They run horizontally. They hold up the structure. There's five of them total. Three out of the five of them are the city's responsibility. The city did not, for the last 24 years, make any repairs or maintenance of any kind to those pile caps."
Bach said that in the last 24 years, Brett's repaired the pile caps it was responsible for.
The city attorney said the price tag for the city to repair the pile caps was $774,000, but with two years (at the time) on the lease the commission decided not to make those repairs.
Bach said the other thing the city did was "even though the city didn't maintain its portion, the city did give a notice to Brett's. And, it became a very public process that Brett's was not structurally sound and so they are claiming the city has harmed them and their business."
Under the terms of the lease with the city, Bach said Brett's could invoke an arbitration provision.
"It requires a panel of three arbitrators, so if they invoke the arbrtration provision and yes they can take us to court if we refuse to arbitrate under the lease, but if we go to arbitration it's worse than court in terms of the fees."
The supporting structure of Brett's Cafe over the river has undergone numerous inspections by maritime engineering experts.
A June 2023 inspection approved by the city commission of the supporting substructure of Brett’s Waterway Cafe led experts Kimley-Horn to recommend that the restaurant and its adjoining deck be closed to the public until repairs could be made to make it safe.
The city has compiled numerous engineering reports detailing how severe the damage is to the undercarriage supporting the restaurant over the river. The city’s own coastal engineering expert, Charlie George, had declared the building unsafe in 2022.
In his original August 2023 demand letter for settlement, Brett's attorney John Tucker wrote “these actions, which follow the city’s prior wrongful actions that included the city’s failure to maintain the portions of the leased premises’ substructure that the city is responsible to maintain, and the wrongful issuance of the notice of violation and consistent public statements thereafter that Brett’s was unsafe, have made it virtually impossible to continue the operation of Brett’s."
Bach also disclosed that Centre Street Restaurant had not paid the city any rent for 18 months on the city owned restaurant, which is subleased by Centre Street.
"The lease says we get five percent of what they collect. Five percent of zero, is zero," Bach said.
She told Commissioner Chip Ross "that we're going back and forth trying to come up with some type of settlement."
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