Lawsuit filed against city of Jackson for breaking lease agreement with Metrocenter Mall

By Michaila Franklin

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    JACKSON, Mississippi (WAPT) — Retro Metro LLC, the owners of Metrocenter Mall in Jackson, has filed a lawsuit against the city of Jackson for breaking their lease agreement.

According to the lawsuit filed June 21, the city of Jackson leased the Belk building at Metrocenter Mall on April 4, 2011, for the purpose of the city maintaining office complexes and other administrative facilities doing business for the city. Those offices include the Jackson Police Department’s Precinct 2 and the city’s water billing department.

Retro Metro LLC is accusing the city of Jackson of not paying their “Consumer Price Index For Urban Wages” (CPI-U) rent as of October 2021. Retro Metro said the rent increased every five years after the initial lease was signed.

Retro Metro is asking that the Hinds County Chancery Court judge to decide how much the company is owed by the city.

On Tuesday, the Jackson City Council voted to terminate the city’s lease at the old Belk building at Metrocenter Mall after complaints from city employees about working conditions.

“It’s never our goal to leave one community with the void and go to the next one,” Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said. “At the same time, we can’t expose (employees) to conditions which are not suitable to work in.”

In a Monday news conference, Lumumba announced city employees working in the offices at Metrocenter Mall will be relocated to the old MDOC building on State Street.

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