 This week marks the beginning of the end for the Cottonwood Plaza as it is known today. Hing’s Donuts closed its doors Thursday because of busted water pipes and Burger King, Imperial Gourmet and Subway all have to be out by Dec. 31. Photo By Mike Gervais By Mike Bodine
Register Staff
12-20-2008 While the future of Cottonwood Plaza remains a mystery, the fate of its remaining tenants seems sealed.
Burger King, Imperial Gourmet, Subway and Hing’s Donuts are among the long-standing businesses who have been ordered to vacate their buildings by Dec. 31, though for at least one of them the departure came sooner than expected.
It has been a tumultuous time for the remaining tenants in trying to decide what they are going to do as litigation is still tying up leases and who the landlord is or was remains among a labyrinth of questions and details concerning Cottonwood Plaza.
Troubles began in January of 2008 when lease issues came to the forefront for the 11 businesses who at one time called Cottonwood Plaza home.
The tenants were reportedly given new leases by a new landlord only to have them taken back in a struggle for this new landlord, Kearsarge Investment, to try and reduce financial losses. The lease with the old landlord, Bishop Plaza, LLC, represented by Richard Maudsley, had run out and the possession of the land was to be given back to Kearsarge, however this possession is still under litigation as well.
Kearsarge Investment, represented by Charles Caldwell, a self-described owner and developer of lands in the Bishop area, leased the land from Bishop resident Robert Crosby.
Kearsarge’s lease was for the land only, however Bishop Plaza, LLC argued that in taking possession of the land Kearsarge got what was on top of it, too. It’s been argued that once Kearsarge had the buildings and Bishop Plaza, LLC was not going to enter into a lease extension, Kearsarge then scrambled to find some way to fill the buildings. When that wasn’t a possibility, Kearsarge then decided that the buildings would be demolished.
Despite pointed references to demolition during court proceedings, Kearsarge has said it is still uncertain as to whether or not the buildings will be razed.
Through all this, the tenants have been told contradictory statements about the future of the buildings and the leases.
Tenants were to be out of the buildings by Dec. 31, unfortunately, an act of nature is forcing some of these tenants into an even earlier retirement.
Kim Seak and Hing Khok of Hing’s Donuts, a shop that has been in business for more than 20 years under different owners, were planning on closing their doors Dec. 27, but a busted water pipe forced them to close on Thursday.
Unseasonably cold weather is being blamed for the cracked pipe that runs above the downstairs suites housing the donut shop and Subway.
It seems that first the water showered down, then chunks of water soaked ceiling came down onto the now-vacant Inyo Photo shop. Although there was no damage reported at Hing’s, the water has been shut off to the whole building.
“We cannot run our business without water,” Seak explained.
Seak said they had to go to Burger King for water to make coffee for the many customers who came in Thursday hoping for a bear claw or old fashioned only to be taken aback by the early closing. The coffee was offered next to pieces, so everyone could get some, of the last donuts Hing’s will make for quite some time.
One patron told Khok that he would follow the couple to wherever they end up.
Seak added that the shop’s machinery will be put in storage while Khok gets knee surgery and they search for another suitable location. Some real estate agents and other business representatives have stated that it will be difficult to find another small space with a kitchen and that it can be very expensive to remodel an existing space with kitchen facilities.
Seak said it is easier and less expensive to just close up now as she didn’t expect the pipes to be fixed.
Subway said Thursday that they would stay closed “until the pipes are fixed.”
Subway re-opened the next day with the owner Manjit Kaur saying that the damage “wasn’t too bad.”
He added that he was also having a difficult time finding a suitable place to relocate. Kaur said it’s not that he needed such a large space but that he needs the parking.
The location in the Cottonwood Plaza was ideal for Subway’s mixed clientele of walk-in and U.S. 395 traffic, “I love the locals, but 395 helps, too.”
He also said that it was hard to find a local land owner, making communication and negotiation more difficult.
Tenant Hal Klieforth sees local lands held by persons who live out of town as a problem, too.
He said that some property owners from out of the area don’t always share local sentiment, such as keeping the buildings in place for historic and cultural reasons.
Klieforth has been passionate about saving the buildings and saving his offices by pleading to City Council and staff, local media and many governmental officials that something be done to save the buildings or prevent them from being left vacant and adding to the “eyesore of empty buildings on Main Street.”
By law a property owner can do whatever they see fit to do with the property, within legal limits, of course.
Dec. 16 marked the last day Klieforth could get into his offices as the locks were changed per a court-ordered eviction.
His offices serve as a field station and outpost for a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association-sponsored Western Regional Climate Center in eastern California.
Klieforth is a climatologist who has an impressive resume including professor emeritus status at the Desert Research Institute in Reno being on the original Sierra Wave project in the early 1950s.
His offices, suite E and F next to Imperial Gourmet, are also a meticulously cataloged warehouse of scientific and natural history artifacts, photographs and publications of mostly local interest.
His near-museum includes the book collection of local pioneer-botanist and author Mary DeDecker, stacks of boxes of the first geographic mapping of the White Mountains and decades of weather reports and mountain-related data. He also has detailed pictures and reports of early “expeditions” to peaks in the Sierra Nevada.
Some of Klieforth’s data, like data and pictures of glaciers in the Sierra from the 1950s, are being used now for proof of global warming with some of his information spotlighted in recent climate-change articles in the Sacramento Bee.
While the ultimate fate of Cottonwood Plaza may still be unknown, a time-line of events concerning the leases can be excavated from of a recent trial.
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