Should Taubman be worried about its challenge of Broadway Plaza and Walnut Creek over Neiman Marcus?

UPDATE: Or rather, should Broadway Plaza owner Macerich and the City of Walnut Creek take action against Taubman Centers Inc. for its anti-Neiman Marcus efforts, in the same way that a rival mall developer and a city in Connecticut did? Of course, some would say, that Macerich and Walnut Creek brought some or all of this on themselves....What do you think?

It looks like Taubman Centers Inc. will be paying out $34 million for delaying for a year a rival developer's effort to build a shopping mall in West Hartford, Connecticut.

The Hartford Courant says that Michigan-based Taubman agreed to pay all these millions to settle a lawsuit filed after it organized and bankrolled citizen legal challenges to the construction of a new mall in West Hartford's downtown, a few miles from one of its own malls.

Sound familiar? 

Taubman, which owns Sunvalley shopping mall in Concord, organized and bankrolled citizen legal challenges and a political campaign aimed to stop retail rival Macerich, which owns Broadway Plaza, from bringing a new Neiman Marcus to downtown Walnut Creek. Taubman also hoped to bring a Neiman Marcus to San Ramon's long-planned city center. Neiman Marcus had shown interest in San Ramon, but, in the end, chose Walnut Creek instead.

In the West Hartford case, the Hartford Courant says that Taubman, "the parent company of Westfarms mall paid $34 million to the developers of Blue Back Square [in downtown West Hartford], compensation for a protracted legal battle that delayed the opening of the retail-residential complex by a year."

The story goes on to say:

The payment ... ends a lawsuit filed in 2007 by developers of the Blue Back retail-residential complex. The suit sought damages for, among other things, lost revenue, higher financing costs and increased construction expenses.


The lawsuit claimed that Taubman organized and bankrolled citizen legal challenges to Blue Back in hopes of preventing the retail rival from being built a few miles from Westfarms.


Blue Back opened in the fall of 2007, a year later than first scheduled. The opening coincided with the onset of a severe economic recession.

And another potential worry for Taubman?

A similar lawsuit filed against Taubman by the town is pending. Town officials allege that the delay resulting from Taubman-financed opposition added to the town's portion of the cost of Blue Back and resulted in lost tax revenue. The town is seeking $4.5 million in damages.

Walnut Creek voters in November overwhelmingly approved Measure I, an initiative which will allow Broadway Plaza to build a new 92,000-square-foot department store at the corner of South Main Street and Mt. Diablo Boulevard. Neiman Marcus said it intends to occupy that spot.

It was a costly battle for Macerich and Taubman--and the City of Walnut Creek. Macerich spent around $1.3 million on the Yes on I campaign, while Taubman Centers spent $700,000. The city had to fork out money for the special election, plus the staff costs and time associated with addressing the legal challenges.

My chat with the manager of the Chinese restaurant whose flag was stolen

Just got off the phone with Linda Lam, the manager of OI-C Bowl Chinese Kitchen and Bar on North Main Street. A flag that the restaurant had flying out front, a flag of the People's Republic of China, was reported stolen Thursday.

I explained to Linda that I had posted a story about her flag and a reader's objections to it on this blog on March 24. Well, Linda, busy restaurateur that she is, had not seen the blog and was not aware of its existence. I told her I was sorry that I hadn't contacted her back when I first published my story.

"Oh, that's okay. Thank you for telling me that."

Linda says she and her family is from Hong Kong, a former territory of the United Kingdom which became part of mainland China in 1997. She said the flag had been sent to her friends in Hong Kong. She said she and the other restaurant staff meant absolutely nothing political in flying it.

"We are just a restaurant, for relaxing, and for people being happy," she said.

She added that she viewed flying this flag the same as other restaurants--Mexican, Italian, French--flying the flags of the nations whose cuisine they serve. I said that I thought that some people have negative associations with this flag: they see it as representing communism, and people still have strong feelings against that political ideology; that many Americans fear China because of its size and economic power; that people from mainland China may have negative feelings about a flag that represents a leadership that oppressed family members in the past.

She again said that her restaurant and its ownership are not trying to make any kind of political statement: "We're have nothing to do with government or politics."

Furthermore she said: "This is America, this is the United States. Lots of restaurants flying different kinds of flags. I don't know why anyone is aiming at us. That is not the spirit of free speech."

She repeated what she told the Contra Costa Times Friday, that she received a call from a man about two weeks ago who complained that the Chinese flag did not represent democracy. She added that whoever took had to put a lot of effort into the theft.

And, yes, she plans to get ahold of another Chinese flag and fly it again.

Okay, readers, she sounds like a nice woman, who just wants to make a living running a local business. It's hard to disagree with her point about free speech, a cornerstone of American democracy. But perhaps she's being a bit naive and idealistic in thinking that everyone will agree that a flag representing the Communist Party-run nation of China is not political.

Oh, with regard to my gripe with the Contra Costa Times. We'll see. So, she couldn't have complained to the Times about my blog, because she didn't know about it. It's possible the reporter, Roman Gokhman, wasn't aware of my story about the flag. After all, my blog is fairly new. But my story did receive a fair amount of response after Claycord.com picked it up, and I'm pretty sure most Times reporters keep up, or should keep up, with Claycord.com these days.