The Weekly Planet isn't the only one chasing a document that could reveal how much politically connected businessman Richard A. Corbett is making off his sweetheart lease at Tampa International Airport. Hillsborough County Property Appraiser Rob Turner will ask a judge to compel Corbett and his partners in the International Plaza mall development at the airport to turn over the document in a tax dispute.
Tampa Westshore Associates Ltd., Corbett's partnership with retail developers Taubman Centers Inc. and Ivanhoe Inc., has sued Turner over an allegedly excessive $38-million real estate tax assessment. Tax Collector Doug Belden, who received a $965,995 payment under protest from the Corbett partnership for last year's taxes, is also a defendant.
Turner wants to review what has become known as the lease arrangement agreement, a document believed to spell out financial and other terms of the relationship between Corbett and his partners.
On April 11, the Planet sued Tampa Westshore Associates, Corbett's Concorde Cos. and their landlord, the county aviation authority, seeking a copy of the same document. (See What is the Big Secret? in the Planet's April 12-18 edition.)
Concorde leases the mall site from the aviation authority, which operates the Tampa airport. The authority obtained some of the land as federal surplus. By U.S. law, if the land is leased, fair-market rent must be charged.
But critics of the International Plaza lease, including federal auditors, a taxpayer-advocacy group and a rival mall owner, say Corbett's rent is well below market. The nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates the airport will lose more than $500-million during the remaining 79 years of the lease.
The Federal Aviation Administration has accepted the contention of airport officials that Corbett's rent is adequate.
The lease arrangement agreement, signed by Concorde and Tampa Westshore Associates in 1994, has been amended several times since, county records show.
Turner believes the document contains valuable information that would help him better gauge the taxable value of the property, said his attorney, William D. Shepherd. Tampa Westshore Associates has failed to respond to Turner's request for the document, said Shepherd. So Turner will ask a judge to order the partnership to produce it.
Aaron R. Bilton, the partnership's Chicago lawyer, couldn't be contacted before deadline.
Airport officials received eight pages of excerpts from the agreement in 1997.
In an April 6 letter to the Planet, airport lawyer Donald W. Stanley Jr. disclosed that his client has requested the lease arrangement agreement in the past and has done so again recently.
This article appears in Apr 19-26, 2001.