Raanan Katz’s shopping center allegedly tells neighbor: No parking for you!
Lawsuit accuses RK Centers of blocking restaurant patrons’ access to lot
Raanan Katz is allegedly getting territorial about sharing parking with a neighbor of one of his South Florida shopping centers, according to a recent lawsuit.
Upper Deck Ale and Sports Grille is seeking a court order to stop Katz from restricting the adjacent restaurant’s customers access to the parking lot at his RK Sage Plaza at 800 East Hallandale Boulevard in Hallandale Beach, the lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, states.
Sunny Isles Beach-based real estate mogul Katz has owned RK Sage through an affiliate since 2012, when he paid $5.5 million for the property, records show. Katz, whose firm RK Centers owns 10 million square feet of commercial space across the country, is among South Florida’s most prolific retail investors.
In July and October of last year, Katz paid a combined $60.1 million for two retail plazas anchored by Aldi grocery stores in Hialeah and North Miami.
In its Jan. 10 complaint, Upper Deck accuses Katz’s affiliate of erecting an allegedly illegal fence at the rear of the property to block an entrance that its patrons use regularly, and for putting up “No Parking” signs just for the restaurant. The measures violated a covenant agreement to share RK Sage’s parking lot that’s been in place more than two decades before Katz purchased the 32,000-square-foot shopping center, the lawsuit states.
Katz, who is minority owner of the Miami Heat NBA franchise, and RK Centers’ general counsel Anthony Pantano did not respond to requests for comment. Upper Deck’s lawyer Jason Klein also did not respond to a request for comment.
The shared parking agreement went into effect in 1988, 14 years before Upper Deck’s owners bought the restaurant, and 24 years prior to Katz’s acquisition of RK, according to court records. The covenant allows Upper Deck employees and customers to use the parking lot between 5 p.m. and 4 a.m. seven days a week without restrictions.
An issue never arose with the shared parking agreement after Katz bought the shopping center, and he gave his consent for the restaurant’s customers to continue using the lot, the lawsuit states.
The parking harmony ended in the fall.
RK’s Pantano requested that Upper Deck mutually consent to terminating the covenant if the restaurant’s owners did not stop blocking some of the parking spaces with traffic cones during regular business hours, according to an Oct. 18 letter he sent Upper Deck that is attached to the lawsuit.
A month later, after Upper Deck’s lawyer responded to RK’s letter that the restaurant removed the traffic cones and wanted to keep the covenant in place, Pantano sent another letter demanding that they end the shared parking agreement. The correspondence, also attached to the lawsuit, explains that RK Sage “has an increasing number of tenants that operate restaurants.” The letter says the restaurants can’t stay open during dinner hours since parking is limited due to Upper Deck’s customers taking up available spaces.
Because Upper Deck refused, Katz’s affiliate “took matters into its own hands in a transparent attempt to pressure plaintiff into doing so,” the complaint states. The affiliate put up the fence, allegedly without a permit, and put up signs that state, “No Upper Deck Parking.”