Belk Inc. v. Warner Robins Zamias LP

The terms of the parties commercial lease agreement expressly provided for the construction of a future store in the same mall without limitation on the future store's size and configuration.

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This case involves the construction of a contract between a mall owner and one of its anchor tenants. The contract requires the mall owner to obtain the consent of the anchor tenant before constructing any building not shown on the site plan, which plan is attached to and incorporated into the contract. The question is whether language in the site plan authorizing a variance in a future store’s size and configuration permits the mall owner to construct a store substantially larger than the 70,000-square-foot square depicted and described in the site plan for the future store. We hold the language permits the larger store and thus affirm the court’s granting of summary judgment in favor of the mall owner.

As this is the appeal of a grant of summary judgment, we consider the case de novo and construe the facts in favor of the non-movant.1 So construed, the evidence shows that in 1989 Warner Robins Zamias Limited Partnership a mall developer and Belk a department store entered into a contract drafted in large part by Belk leasing Belk certain space at the Galleria Mall being built near Warner Robins, Georgia. Attached to and incorporated into the lease was a site plan drafted by Zamias depicting the mall. Zamias agreed that without written consent from Belk, “no buildings nor other structures of any kind shall be constructed or otherwise built, erected or placed anywhere on the Shopping Center Site, except as shown on the Site Plan or otherwise permitted by this Lease. . . .” The original site plan showed an 86,479-square-foot “Future Proposed Discount Department Store” to be built on pad #6.

Belk Inc. v. Warner Robins Zamias LP

The terms of the parties commercial lease agreement expressly provided for the construction of a future store in the same mall without limitation on the future store's size and configuration.

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