A Casa Linda Shopping Center tenant provided this invoice to the Advocate for the 2008 tree lighting ceremony and holiday decorations.
We don’t know why Edens Investment Trust, new owners of the Casa Linda Shopping Center, canceled the beloved annual tree lighting ceremony that generations of East Dallas families looked forward to each holiday season. Edens has not returned our calls inquiring why the event was canceled.
But one center tenant believes it might have something to do with the event’s $47,000 price tag. He thinks the new corporate owner didn’t intend to be the Grinch who stole Christmas, but was rather naively trying to save local businesses money.
“It’s not that they’re ‘cheap,’ they’re trying to cut our expenses,” says the tenant, who wishes to remain anonymous. “They’re a big company now and they’re just looking at spreadsheets. They’re not aware of the local scene.”
The tenant explained that, as part of their management contract, lease-holders agree to help fund seasonal displays. They are billed based on the physical size of their business, meaning a shop whose square footage represents 15 percent of the 323,000-square-foot center, is charged 15 percent of the total bill for holiday decor.
When it comes to the tree lighting, those costs can get expensive. The tenant provided an invoice from Four Seasons Decorations showing that the center spent $47,173.18 for the 24-foot artificial tree to be assembled and decorated in 2008.
He said that the former management company already owned the artificial Christmas tree, which is kept in storage at the center, so the invoice represented money spent on decorations and set-up for the holiday event.
Those holiday invoices come in addition to other general management fees that tenants are charged throughout the year.
“Some [tenants] weren’t happy with all the fees,” our source tells us, explaining that the fee structure changed when Edens acquired the center’s former owner, AMREIT, earlier this year.
Our source thinks this year’s tree lighting may have been scrapped in response tenants’ grumblings about those fees, but added Edens should have asked the businesses first.
“No one asked if we were willing to share the cost of the tree lighting, before they made this decision,” our source says. “We didn’t get a chance to say, ‘This is important to us.’”
He thinks, given the chance, many of his fellow tenants would support the tree lighting, especially if costs could be better controlled. He’s hopeful the beloved tree lighting would return next year, perhaps with some additional help from the community.
“This doesn’t have to be a $47,000 tree lighting,” he says. “We cold get neighborhood groups and volunteers involved to keep it going.”
