Stet NewsLooking at the lease negotiations for Lake Worth Beach’s landmark pier.
It may be too soon to know if Benny’s on the Beach will pack up the linens and silverware and make good on Lee Lipton’s threat to leave his oceanfront eatery.
The flurry of figures thrown about in the Lake Worth Beach Commission meeting on his city lease focused on raising the rent from $32.92 to $42. Lipton balked at the increase. Commissioner balked at renewing the lease without it.
But there are five more bits of math:
10 years. The rent hike would have been the first since 2013.
$13.64. That’s the per-square-foot maintenance fee paid to the city by a neighbor of Benny’s, LW Tee Shirt Co. It pushes the retailer’s total indoor square foot charges to $61.34 as of last year, almost double the $32.69 paid by Benny’s.
Other nearby businesses with city leases pay similar charges. As of last year, Mama Mia’s pizza’s indoor lease rate of $47.70 per square foot totaled $55.93 with maintenance fees; Kilwin’s indoor square foot charges were $34.07 without maintenance fees; $47.46 with.
Zero. Benny’s assumes the costs of maintaining his property and some maintenance on the pier, but is not required to pay maintenance fees to the city.
92,158. That’s the number of visitors to the Lake Worth Beach pier in 2019. Benny’s collects city pier admission fees, somewhere between $1 and $5 per person, varying on whether someone is fishing or just enjoying the walk.
Benny’s also keeps some of those fees for managing admissions on behalf of the city.
Fuzzy. Some commissioners at the April 18 meeting seemed unclear as to exactly how much money Benny’s was getting from pier admissions. And the business might be losing money on it.
Read more: Joe Capozzi breaks down the dispute.
