Looking back on his violent encounter with teenagers while preparing to open his new martial arts school, James Gonzalez should have seen the trouble that lay ahead. But he didn’t. Instead, the incident would only be the first of several involving groups of teens, harassment and confrontation.
In the end, his business in the Town Center at Timber Springs would pay the price, shutting its doors last month. It was November of last year when Gonzalez was working out of his van in the plaza parking lot, trying to get his store ready to open. It was late afternoon and not unusual for students from Timber Creek High School to venture to the nearby shopping center for after-school treats and socializing. But on this day, like others to come, things got out of hand.
“I was outside painting and some kids were sitting next door at the ice cream place,” he recalled. “The next thing I know there was a ton of kids out there fighting.” With about 40 youngsters converging on the parking lot, Gonzalez raced to close up his van. “That’s when a kid came at me with a knife,” he said. The kid chased him across the parking lot, but Gonzalez was able to safely make it back to his store.
Eventually, he said about 20 police officers were needed on the scene to restore order. “It was very disheartening,” he said of his introduction to the shopping center, noting conditions didn’t improve in the ensuing months. Since becoming a tenant in the Town Center at Timber Springs, Gonzalez, the owner of Dragon Karate Academy, had at least three more incidents with teens, including a gang fight. On these occasions, his young students and their mothers, along with his employees, have been subjected to insults, cursing and other lewd behavior, he said.
“I lost a lot of clients. Parents don’t want their children to see stuff like that,” Gonzalez said. Dragon Karate Academy, however, is not the only store to be the target of bad behavior, and worse. In October of 2007 four stores at the Town Center at Timber Springs were broken into on the same night, with offenders forcing their way through the back doors and stealing cash. But it was the recent mugging outside a Japanese restaurant that brought the danger into focus. About a month ago the owner of Wasabi Sushi was beaten and robbed.
About 10 p.m. the victim was taking trash out back when he was reportedly approached by three teenagers, who asked to use his cell phone. When he paused to respond, they hit him over the head, knocking him down, then emptying his pockets. As a result of this and other incidents, the owner of Dragon Karate Academy walked away from his five-year lease and closed his Timber Springs storefront in August.
Gonzalez transferred his 50 remaining students, many involved in summer camp, to his other location on Woodbury Road. “That was the last straw,” Gonzalez said. “I was left with the decision, ‘Do I stay there and jeopardize the lives of people or do I leave?’ “I had to make the decision to get out of there for the safety of the children and my workers. I didn’t have a choice.” According to Gonzalez, his lack of options also extends to defending his place of business.
On three different occasions when he called police about harassment by teens, the responding deputy was the Timber Creek school resource officer. In each case, Gonzalez said the officer would not allow him to pursue the matter. “I wanted to prosecute,” Gonzalez said, “but he refused to let me.” Orange County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Louis Mercado, the TCHS school resource officer at the time, is unavailable for comment.
Mercado, 45, was arrested July 28 in a sex-abuse case and is currently in jail on a $250,000 bond. Mercado was charged with sexual battery on a child younger than 12 after a 24- year-old man said the deputy allegedly sexually abused him when he was a child and a teenager. Mercado remains suspended from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. His trial date has yet to be set. If convicted, he faces an automatic 25 years to life sentence.
OCSO Capt. Tina Gordon said she was unsure why Mercado was the responding officer in each incident, but said deputies are obligated to vigorously pursue victims’ complaints. And there have been plenty of them. In just the last five months, OCSO deputies have responded to 59 calls-forservice at Town Center at Timber Springs and the adjoining Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market.
The offenses range from a May 8 aggravated assault to a July 30 strong arm robbery to batteries on June 28 and Sept. 1, and numerous calls for theft, trespassing and burglar alarms going off. “I see a lot of activity there,” Gordon said. Last week Captain Gordon, accompanied by a crime-prevention officer, went to the plaza to talk to tenants about their concerns. Gordon said she heard “mixed reviews” regarding problems with teens.
But in talking to tenants, she heard another type of complaint besides crime. “A common theme is that their rent is very high,” she said.
Management at issue
In voicing his safety concerns to the
Town Center at Timber Springs management
company, CREC (Continental Real
Estate Companies), Gonzalez said his
options also were limited. Repeated
complaints failed to spur CREC to take
any steps in avoiding future occurrences, he said.
“They’ll talk to you, but months will go
by and there’s no response.
I guess the best word to use is that they ‘pacify’ you,” Gonzalez said. CREC, with offices in East Orlando, would not speak on the issue, referring inquiries to ownership. SCI Real Estate Investments, based in Southern California, did not return repeated calls. After vacating the premises, Gonzalez finally did get a response from the management company. He received a formal eviction notice for breaking the terms of his lease. CREC is a commercial real estate firm that offers a variety of services to its customers.
CREC currently manages an office and retail portfolio of over 80 properties and more than 10 million square feet throughout Florida, including Colonial Promenade in Orlando. Other Timber Springs tenants also have complained to CREC regarding safety, maintenance and leasing issues. Tenants say they routinely receive increases in their rent and additional charges for insurance, common-area maintenance and management fees.
Kathy Cabrera of the Peter Jacobs Salon and Spa has seen the teens congregating in the center, but she hasn’t experienced any trouble herself. Her problem is with the management company constantly hiking its maintenance costs. “The common-area maintenance fee is the one that hits everybody so hard,” she said.
In the last two years, her monthly fees have gone up $1,100. For a small business, in tough times, that’s hard to take. “I hope that they’re mindful of the economy and don’t raise the rent again,” she said. Party City is one small business at the plaza that could no longer make ends meet, going out of business earlier this year.
Other mom-and-pop stores have also failed in the plaza’s short two-year existence. But tenants say there are a number of assets to being located in the 35,105-square-foot Town Center at Timber Springs. A good draw to the center is the number of stable, national tenants such as Starbucks, Coldstone Creamery, McDonald’s and Washington Mutual.
While the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market is the main attraction for customers, the grocery store is technically separate and not owned by SCI. The center offers still other attractive incentives, including more than 44,000 residents within a three-mile radius, an average household income of $65,953 within the same area, and a daily traffic count of more than 25,000 vehicles at the intersection of Avalon Park and Timber Springs boulevards.
But the plaza also is burdened with unattractive problems such as criminal activity, a deterrent for any shopping destination. Gonzalez said his business has suffered irreparable harm as a result of the problems he experienced at Town Center at Timber Springs. As a martial arts school, he works with children and, these days, parents are extremely cautious about who they allow to interact with their children.
c“When you’re in the business of being responsible for kids, it takes a long time to build that trust. Once that trust is gone, you’re done,” he said.
