Market boss says vendors get fair deal; not all agree

He's been painted as a monster who has it in for Rick's Steaks sandwich stand, but the Reading Terminal Market's board chairman, Ricardo Dunston, insists he's just trying to improve the historic shopping site.

"No one in the market" has a lifetime lease, said Dunston, who has managed the Gallery, the Shops at Liberty Place and concessions at Philadelphia International Airport.

The market has declined to renew its lease for Rick's Steaks, a tenant for 25 years. The lease expired July 31. Operator Rick Olivieri, who says he was promised a lease, and the market have both gone to court.

Olivieri continues to fry onions on borrowed time while both sides await resolution.

Dunston said that Olivieri had ample opportunity to agree to a lease but that he repeatedly questioned new terms - including paying higher rent, working longer hours and providing management with sales figures. So the board took the lease to someone more agreeable - rival sandwich-maker Tony Luke.

Olivieri now says he'll sign whatever lease the market wants to give him, but Dunston said it's too late.

"Now, my view of it is that the time for Rick to say something like that should have occurred much earlier. He could have picked up the phone," Dunston said.

Olivieri's attorney, Bill Harvey, said that Dunston's version of events was bogus. He said that Olivieri was always prepared to agree to the terms when presented with a lease proposal but that he never got one.

"The reality here is that they had made a decision that they were tired of dealing with Rick," Harvey said.

Market management has clashed for several years with Olivieri - who, until recently, served as head of the merchants association - and other longtime vendors.

Dunston wants to make the market competitive with places like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. Many merchants feel they should get more say over how the market is operated.

"I understand that we're tenants there," said Michael Holoman, who operates the Pennsylvania General Store and is the interim head of the merchants association. "But anybody who knows the Reading Terminal Market knows there are tenants who took the place from an embarrassment and an eyesore to a vibrant business.

"How can you tell those people they're tenant farmers?"

Dunston doesn't see it that way. He said he had not dealt with vendors like this at other shopping locations.

"The big difference is the entitlement that some merchants seem to have and the complete unwillingness of people to look at the factual situation," he said.

Dunston also thinks he's giving the merchants a fair shake. He said the contract agreed upon with the merchants association in October sets rents for lunch merchants at 10 percent of their gross sales. (They used to pay 4 percent to 6 percent.)

Dunston said the standard rent in a mall would start at 10 percent to 12 percent of gross sales.

Olivieri and Dunston have been arguing over proposed changes for more than a year. And it's no secret around the market that Olivieri can be a tough customer.

But what really happened with his lease? Olivieri maintains that he was promised one but that it never materialized.

Dunston said that general lease terms were agreed upon last October and that management started issuing leases to merchants. In February, Olivieri sent Dunston an e-mail disputing several provisions on behalf of some lunch merchants.

That e-mail - which Dunston did not provide a copy of - triggered a conversation among board members about whether to keep Rick's Steaks. Dunston said Olivieri was aware of his position, but made no overtures to the board and instead raised the same concerns to a board member in May.

Shortly after that, the board contacted Tony Luke's, Dunston said. In June the board told Olivieri that he had to be out July 31.

"The board made the decision," Dunston said. "It was a six-to-one decision to remove him. And we're carrying out the wishes of the board."

Harvey said the board could have reached out to Olivieri instead of making decisions based on an e-mail and one conversation.

"They didn't seek clarity, because they didn't want to seek clarity," he said.

Dunston, who has given substantial campaign contributions to Mayor Street and Gov. Rendell, was brushed with controversy once before, when concession management at the airport came under scrutiny because of the influence the late fundraiser Ron White, who was later indicted. White's widow and girlfriend both benefited from airport deals.

Dunston has never been accused of wrongdoing in relation to the airport concessions. *