{"id":4208,"date":"2013-11-05T20:47:59","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T03:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/?p=4208"},"modified":"2013-11-05T20:47:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T03:47:59","slug":"kroger-right-of-refusal-language-a-brief-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/?p=4208","title":{"rendered":"Kroger Right of Refusal Language: A Brief History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>Eastbridge residents have been frustrated for almost a decade, wondering when and if they will have a town center in the Eastbridge neighborhood. To many Eastbridge residents, the town center played at least a small part in why they purchased their home in Eastbridge. \u201cObviously, the school that was originally promised was the biggest thing,\u201d said resident Julia Hansen. \u201cAnd having the park and pool so close is great, and we are thrilled that happened. In hindsight, since we didn\u2019t get the school, the town center, or the 26th Ave. Park, it is certainly possible we may not have had the F-15 park either. So, I guess that is nice.\u201d\nFor most Eastbrdge residents, one of four is not good enough, however. \u201cIt is ridiculous it has taken this long and still nothing,\u201d said resident Aaron Collazo. \u201cWe absolutely were told by a builder that it would be in in three years\u2014-seven years ago. We had visions of walking with the kids to get coffee, groceries, and breakfast. But nothing. Not even a good progress report.\u201d\n\nIt is no secret as to why Forest City says this has been held up. \u201cWe need a grocer to anchor the town center,\u201d said Forest City President Phil Dargossi. \u201cAnd, we just have not been able to get one in there.\u201d The other challenge for residents is the contractual language between Forest City and Kroger, owner of King Soopers. \u201cMost residents apparently want an alternative grocer, and we have a contract with King Soopers that will give them the first right of refusal if we ever have an alternative grocer in place,\u201d said Dargossi. These types of agreements are pretty standard, but what makes this contract egregious is the length of the term of the right of refusal.\n\u201cKroger will retain the first right of refusal for 20 years according to Forest City,\u201d said local lawyer Bradley Christensen. \u201cI have been working in business and corporate law for about 25 years, and I have never seen anything so ridiculous. Five to ten years is typically standard for this type of an arrangement.\u201d\nThe Stapletonion looked into how a major corporation that often deals with legal issues could ever make such a big error. The key player in all of this is someone who never officially worked for Forest City and was just an intern at the time. \u201cI was working on finishing my online law degree from Concord Law School,\u201d said Jamey Earnest. \u201cForest City Stapleton was allowing me to be an intern in the legal department, which pretty much meant getting everyone\u2019s coffee and doing brainless admin tasks.\u201d\nForest City came to trust Earnest, and they continued to trust him with more and more important tasks, albeit, none needing a degree of any sort. \u201cHe was a good kid,\u201d said lead counsel for Forest City, Steve Hubka. \u201cHe was never going to work for us full time, but we wanted him to get a valuable experience. I guess I just trusted him too much.\u201d\nOn September 19th, 2003, Hubka was heading out to golf on a Friday afternoon, and asked Earnest to bring the signed papers over to Kroger for them to sign and return. \u201cHe literally was supposed to drop off the documents, have them sign them, and bring them back. Obviously, he made an error that could not be undone, and we certainly did not authorize him to do so. He was considered an agent of Forest City, however, so the changes he made were legally binding.\u201d\nWhat Earnest did was unwittingly forever change the course of the Eastbridge community. \u201cI brought the documents over, as I was requested,\u201d said Earnest. There were about five Kroger lawyers reading the documents. It was kind of intimidating. Then, they asked very casually if we could just change the right of refusal language from 10 years to 20 years. I said \u2018sure\u2019, assuming it wasn\u2019t a big deal. Just one of those mistakes you make and learn from.\u201d\nEarnest, 35, is currently living with his folks in Thornton, Colorado, and working on another online degree. \u201cI\u2019m currently completing my healthcare administration degree online,\u201d said Earnest. \u201cLaw really wasn\u2019t for me, after all, so I am trying some other things.\u201d Forest City also has learned a few things. \u201cSometimes, you need to just do things yourself,\u201d said Hubka. \u201cI certainly accept some of the responsibility for what happened, but I don\u2019t regret it. Mostly because I broke 80 for the first time of my life, so that was a really great day for me.\u201d For Stapleton residents hoping for a great day of walking to an Eastbridge town center, well, they may have to wait until about 2025.\n]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-issue-67","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stapletonion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}