Lincoln City Council
After much debate, aldermen approve lease document for a patio adjacent to the Rio Grande Restaurant

 

[April 04, 2023] 

Monday evening, one of the longest discussions by aldermen at the voting session of the Lincoln City Council revolved around a lease document that will be presented to the owner of the Rio Grande Restaurant on North Kickapoo Street in Lincoln.

The restaurant is owned and operated by Ernesto Leon who is purchasing the building from third party. The lease agreement has to be approved as presented to Leon and the building owner before it will go into effect.

The document approved Monday night entitles Leon to lease a patio that will be constructed adjacent to the north side of the restaurant on city owned property. In exchange for $1 per year and the right to place a mural on the area above the awning of the patio, Ernesto will be entitled to use of the patio as an outdoor dining space for his business. Ernesto will be responsible for the cost of the awning over the patio and any fencing that may be erected around the patio. The city of Lincoln will be responsible for the cost of the mural.

When the item came up for a motion Monday night, after the second, Wanda Lee Rohlfs offered up an amendment. She prefaced her amendment saying that she felt the city should place a higher value on the patio than just $1. She said that leasing city owned property to the restaurant for $1 was setting a precedent the city might be sorry it set. She noted that the purpose of the proposed patio was to offer Leon an alternative to the outdoor dining parklets permitted on city streets.

The parklets were initially created within the city to be permissible in front of eateries during the Covid restrictions on indoor dining. When those restrictions were lifted, several of the local establishment owners asked if they could still have the outdoor spaces which included taking away parking directly in front of their businesses. They felt the benefits of offering outdoor space far outweighed what they were losing in available parking. The city agreed to the request and set a fee for the use of the parking spaces.

Monday night Rohlfs said that Leon should pay an annual fee equivalent to the fee he was paying for the parking space parklet, which would be $50 per year. She felt that otherwise, it would appear that the city was showing some kind of favoritism to Leon and also it would tell business owners that they could seek the same lease if they were located next door to a city owned property.

Rick Hoefle disagreed with Rohlfs saying that she was overlooking the long-term economic impact of the mural. He reminded the council that the restaurant sits on the original Route 66 installation which came down North Kickapoo and turned right onto Broadway Street. He said that the mural is going to be a photo op for tourist coming to Lincoln on Route 66. It will cause them to stop, get out of their vehicles and perhaps shop around and walk around the community as they do so.

He said all the businesses in Lincoln had the potential to benefit from the mural which was part of the lease agreement.

At that point, the council was clearly split on what to do next. Steve Parrott suggested that there be an additional amendment that the city would then in turn lease the exterior wall of the building for the mural for the amount of $49 per year. This would bring the out of pocket cost back down to $1 for the restaurant, and would establish that the lease of city property was $50 a year for all other businesses unless an additional counter-lease was established.

Several aldermen, including Kevin Bateman said he could get behind a motion to lease for $50 to Leon and for $49 from Leon. It was noted that the amendment made by Rohlfs could be amended again to reflect the give and take situation proposed. However, it was then recommended that the two lease amendments be voted upon separately.

Additional comments came from Tony Zurkammer noting that the city had just recently sold the property less than a block from the Rio Grande of $1, and comments from City Treasurer Chuck Conzo via telephone supporting the original amendment of $50 per year. Hoefle also cautioned the council not to get into dictating decisions for downtown businesses as it might not like the end results.

Welch pointed out that even though the lease is going to be to Rio Grande, the patio will always belong to the city, and if the Rio Grande doesn’t renew the lease, the city still has the asset.

Finally, the amended motion to charge Rio Grande Restaurant $50 per year for the use of the city-owned patio came to a vote.

Four aldermen, Sam Downs, Rohlfs, Bateman and Parrott voted yes to the amendment. Four aldermen, Hoefle, Kathy Horn, Zurkammer and Rob Jones voted no, leaving the tie-breaking vote to Mayor Tracy Welch.

During discussion prior to the vote, Welch had noted the benefits of both sides of the argument. When called upon to provide the tie breaking vote, he spent a few seconds considering his answer then said that his vote would be based upon the potential of long-term economic benefit for the downtown area businesses and would therefore vote no to the amendment.

With the fail of the amendment, the original motion to lease the city-owned patio to the Rio Grande was voted upon and passed with a 7-1 vote. Rohlfs was the only alderman to vote no to the original motion.

It should be noted that the lease agreement will not go into effect until the document is signed by the city and the other two parties involved.

[Nila Smith]