La Bare signs Lincoln Village lease
Shopping center tenants and neighbors oppose the nightclub
By Suzannah Gonzales
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Lincoln Village shopping center tenants and neighbors are upset about
a new tenant that plans to move in: La Bare.
The nightclub with male dancers used to be at Riverside Drive near
South Congress Avenue, but it moved from there a few years ago after
the adult-oriented business was found to be within 1,000 feet of the
Texas School for the Deaf, a violation of a city zoning regulation.
La Bare proposed moving to a handful of locations throughout the city
but didn’t, said Jerry Rusthoven, a manager in the city Neighborhood
and Planning and Zoning Department.
Attempts to reach La Bare representatives for comment on Friday were
unsuccessful.
Adult-oriented businesses cannot be within 1,000 feet of a lot on
which another adult-oriented business is located, or within 1,000 feet
of a school, church, public park, playground or licensed day care
center, Rusthoven said. They also cannot be on a lot where more than
50 percent of the lots within a 1,000-foot radius are zoned or used
residential.
Even if La Bare meets those city requirements, it cannot open at
Lincoln Village until its site plan is approved, a process that
includes a public hearing at a Planning Commission meeting, Rusthoven
said.
When it gets to that point, neighbors will be there to protest and
ask that the site plan not be approved, said Highland Neighborhood
Association President Damon Howze.
“We just don’t want to be the strip club neighborhood of Austin,”
Howze said, noting that there are two strip clubs in the area.
But Bill Hutchinson, president of Dunhill Partners Inc., the company
that manages Lincoln Village, called La Bare a “good, wholesome
entertainment venue.”
He noted that most nonentertainment businesses at Lincoln Village
will close before La Bare opens.
La Bare has signed a 10-year lease and will be in a space where only
one tenant is adjacent to it, Hutchinson said. A Mexican restaurant
used to occupy the site, he said.
Six of the 35 spaces at the shopping center, excluding the La Bare
site, are vacant, he said. Leasing has been difficult at Lincoln
Village, built in the 1980s on the periphery of Highland Mall, because
of the economic downturn, which has hurt the mall. The elevation of
the highway also has limited access to and visibility of the shopping
center.
“We have a good relationship with almost all of our tenants,”
Hutchinson said. “We don’t want to offend anybody, but we want to do
what we feel is in the best interest of our shopping center. And we
feel they will bring a lot of business.”
But Kyle Florio and Sarah Berg, optometrists at Vision Source-Lincoln
Village, say La Bare will hurt their business.
“I’m not opposed to strip clubs, but there’s a place for them,”
Florio said, “and here’s not it.”
[email protected]; 445-3616
Source:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/02/28/0228labare.html
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