Morning after morning, small-business owners in the Anna Maria Island Centre shopping plaza on East Bay Drive in Holmes Beach unlock their doors and start another workday.
Most owners of the shops in the Benderson plaza depend on their businesses to support their families.
Benderson began in Buffalo, New York, six decades ago in a manner not so different. Founder Nathan Benderson, according to his obituary, started a used bottle company as a teenager. Entrepreneurship came natural for the young man and he parlayed that small bottle company into one of the nation’s largest privately held real estate companies.
The elder Nathan Benderson died at the age of 94 in April 2012, leaving behind the conglomerate and a legacy of philanthropy.
Today, Benderson is still family-owned and operated. It is one of the regions’ largest employers and most significant land owners. Son Nathan Benderson serves as chief operating officer and Randall Benderson is president.
The company controls 700-plus properties nationwide, with more than 40 million square feet of space in shopping centers, office buildings, industrial parks, hotels and yet-to-be-developed raw land, according to Benderson’s website.
Benderson relocated its corporate headquarters from Buffalo in 2004 to an area near Interstate 75 in eastern Manatee County. In 2014, Benderson completed the Mall at the University Town Center west of 1-75 near Lakewood Ranch and set about converting the borrow pit from the mall construction into a park and rowing center, bearing the Benderson name.
On the flip side of the coin from Benderson are numerous small-business owners renting space from the conglomerate.
They are a mix of homegrown business ventures and venturesome franchisees.
Dave Cotrone is a Smoothie King franchise owner awaiting Holmes Beach permits to begin converting vacant space to Smoothie King in the Anna Maria Island Centre. Cotrone owns three other Smoothie Kings in the Bradenton area, with his flagship store at 3543 53rd Ave. W.
Worldwide, there are more than 650 Smooth King locations on three continents. But Cotrone sees himself and his businesses differently.
“I’m the mom and pop of local Smooth Kings in this area,” Cotrone said. “We do a lot for schools and the community.”
Cotrone said his stores are a family affair for himself and his son, who works in the company. He says he is not corporate-owned, like some stores on Anna Maria Island.
“We are vested in this community and this community only,” Cotrone said. “I get it, but I don’t view it like I’m the big franchise.”
Meanwhile, Benderson would appear to prefer franchises over independent stores.
Both Paradise Cafe and Holy Cow Ice Cream owners have said their complaints regarding “non-compete clauses” in their leases were met with an offer from Benderson to let them out of their leases.
But closing the doors is not an option if they hope to recoup their investments.
In searching for middle ground, Holmes Beach officials are researching what other municipalities have done to control an influx of chains into their cities.
Holmes Beach found some cities rely on historic districts to limit chains. By designating areas as “historic,” regulations are easier to pass and enforce.
Even in large metro areas, chain businesses are falling under more scrutiny. In San Francisco, each incoming chain must be approved by the planning commission on a case-by-case basis. Several factors are weighed, including whether similar goods and services already are available, the concentration of formula retail businesses in the neighborhood and the compatibility of the proposed chain with the area’s overall character.
Closer to home, Sarasota County designated a neighborhood overlay district on Siesta Key where only pre-existing convenience/gas stations and a Subway encroach on independent businesses.
Mark Smith of Smith Architects has lived and worked on Siesta Key for more than 22 years and serves as chairman of the Siesta Key Chamber of Commerce.
Smith attributes the lack of formula stores on Siesta Key to size.
“The formula stores have profiles and, luckily, we don’t fit the profile. Our business district is a block wide. Parking is an issue. The buildings are wrong. There’s a number of reasons the attempts to get a Starbucks on Siesta Key have failed,” Smith said.
“Anna Maria, like Siesta Key, is a place visitors come to get away from it all. Fortunately, our commercial areas are not ‘mainland large’ like Anna Maria’s. They don’t accommodate the chain profile,” Smith said.
In Holmes Beach, the city commission moved forward on enacting a formula business moratorium at its June 16 work session.
Bradenton Beach has regulations in its comprehensive plan, stating “multi-unit business using a common brand name, i.e., franchise or chain-type stores is not permitted.” The same rule also applies to mixed-use commercial land in the city.
Anna Maria has no formula stores. But some businesses there, such as Poppo’s, which originated on Pine Avenue, have multiple locally owned locations in the area.
Deb Wing, Anna Maria Island Chamber of Commerce president, said, “We must strive for balance. We must find the balance between the formula businesses coming on the island and having our needs met.”
She said Benderson, while responding to the discussion on formula business in a letter to the mayor, failed to address the issues presented in a May letter from the chamber board of directors.
“Benderson did not respond to the two important points made in the letter — best practices policies for landlords for existing tenants and unique island destination branding. Both of these themes point out that within a free enterprise system, there should be a consideration to a local community,” Wing said.
Cotrone feels like his entrance into the mid-island shopping center would be a win for all.
“Good competition is good for business,” he said. “I believe our Smoothie King will bring value all the businesses there will benefit from. I’m not corporate, I’m family.”