Lease transfer for O.C. Market Place’s new owner gets conditional approval
A new owner is poised to take over the long-running weekend swap meet at the Orange County fairgrounds in Costa Mesa after the Fair Board on Thursday conditionally approved transferring the event’s lease.
The unanimous decision to shift the Orange County Market Place lease long held by Tel Phil Enterprises of Newport Beach to fairgrounds concessionaire Spectra was greeted with a round of applause at the board’s meeting.
“It’s a great property, it’s a great event, it’s a great facility, everything’s great about it,” said Nick Nicora, vice president of business development for Spectra.
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Spectra, which already manages food services at the fairgrounds, is part of Comcast Spectacor — a Philadelphia-based company that owns the Philadelphia Flyers and the hockey team’s arena, the Wells Fargo Center.
The change in ownership for the Market Place hinges on Spectra and Tel Phil putting the finishing touches on their agreement to transfer the lease, said Stewart Suchman, a Newport Beach attorney who has represented Tel Phil since the 1970s.
“We hope to have a signed agreement sometime next week,” Suchman said Thursday.
Once the deal is finalized, Suchman said, Spectra will take over the lease.
Tel Phil also must remove all its equipment from the property by Wednesday and pay an outstanding balance of almost $221,000, Suchman said.
Most of that is back rent from prior years that was being paid off on a monthly basis, Suchman said. Now, however, it must be “paid in full in order for the Fair Board to approve the assignment of the lease,” Suchman said.
The swap meet, originally called Treasures and Trash, was founded in 1969 by the family of Bob Teller, who owns Tel Phil. Market Place spokeswoman Jill Lloyd told the Daily Pilot last month that Teller wants to retire to pursue other interests.
In 2014, Tel Phil’s contract was renewed for 10 years, with the option to extend it an additional 10 years. The fairgrounds is expected to receive $43.7 million in rent from the Market Place over that 20-year period.
The same terms would apply once Spectra takes over Tel Phil’s lease, Lloyd said.
Nicora said one of Spectra’s main goals is to be a “good steward” of the Teller family’s legacy.
“We really care about what they contributed to this community and the OC Fair and we want to remember that,” Nicora said. “We’re not going to change, we’re going to build.”
Fair Board members and people in the audience Thursday expressed enthusiasm for Spectra taking over the lease.
“Our objective was to, obviously, make sure that we had an agreement that protected the district and that worked to the benefit of the operator and to the benefit of the vendors,” said board member Douglas La Belle.
Spectra, La Belle said, has “been a great partner” over the years.
Nicora said Spectra hopes to have a “grand reopening” for the Market Place sometime this summer.
“We’d like to see a significant event — a significant rebirth,” he said.
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Luke Money, lucas.money@latimes.com
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
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