Florida Car Museum Evicted by State College With Only Few Weeks’ Notice

[Xander Wildeisen]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-car-museum-evicted-by-state-college-with-only-few-weeks-notice/ar-AA1cvfkY?li=BBnb7Kz

[Crusty Trucker]

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-car-museum-evicted-by-state-college-with-only-few-weeks-notice/ar-AA1cvfkY?li=BBnb7Kz

[Hemi Joel]

That's all we need is another sports facility. The automotive hobby sure doesn't receive support commensurate with its popularity and participation numbers. Toss a ball around and the government chases you with money. Do car stuff and they chase you out. 

 

2 weeks is not enough time. I would think a commercial lease would have a much longer notice period. I hope they can find a new home. 

[Steve_Mack_CT]

Bummer.  But also showcases IMO an over emphasis on athletics at collegiate level today, especially at state schools, who should be more focused on meeting the need for a  low cost alternative vs. Increased enrollment.  

[John Bloom]

7 hours ago, Hemi Joel said:

That's all we need is another sports facility. The automotive hobby sure doesn't receive support commensurate with its popularity and participation numbers. Toss a ball around and the government chases you with money. Do car stuff and they chase you out. 

 

2 weeks is not enough time. I would think a commercial lease would have a much longer notice period. I hope they can find a new home. 

If they were there before the college, are a responsible tenant, have a history of paying the rent on time and aren't a pain in the ass to the neighbors and the college and ownership.........and were told with no warning "get out in two weeks"....that is shameful.

 

However, even though the article doesn't give any insight about the specifics, something tells me it isn't as tidy as my scenario above.  There is likely another side to this story.  We just don't have that piece of the puzzle.  I hate to see a museum of classic cars treated shabbily, but I'll withhold judgement a bit here.  My gut tells me that there are some facts missing from the equation.  

 

 

OK, editing here.  I only read the first article, the second one gave a couple more facts.  So initially they were told in May about leaving.  That tells me a couple things......They don't have a lease?  They are at the end of their lease?  They are "month to month".  All of that information is important.  I'm on the museum's side here, but the museum leadership needs to know what their security in their space is and have plans if they choose to leave or the lease isn't renewed.  

 

It would be interesting to get the other side of the story.  perhaps it would show important details that give a clearer picture. Or not...............

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by John Bloom (see edit history)

[kfle]

5 hours ago, John Bloom said:

If they were there before the college, are a responsible tenant, have a history of paying the rent on time and aren't a pain in the ass to the neighbors and the college and ownership... and were told with no warning "get out in two weeks"... that is shameful.

 

However, even though the article doesn't give any insight about the specifics, something tells me it isn't as tidy as my scenario above.  There is likely another side to this story.  We just don't have that piece of the puzzle.  I hate to see a museum of classic cars treated shabbily, but I'll withhold judgement a bit here.  My gut tells me that there are some facts missing from the equation.  

 

OK, editing here.  I only read the first article, the second one gave a couple more facts.  So initially they were told in May about leaving.  That tells me a couple things......They don't have a lease?  They are at the end of their lease?  They are "month to month".  All of that information is important.  I'm on the museum's side here, but the museum leadership needs to know what their security in their space is and have plans if they choose to leave or the lease isn't renewed.  

 

It would be interesting to get the other side of the story.  perhaps it would show important details that give a clearer picture. Or not...

 

I live in the area and the media is trying to make this out as having political undertones.  I to am guessing that this was a very favorable month to month lease at low cost.  The property is extremely prime sitting right off of the main road going in and out of downtown Sarasota.  The building itself in my opinion is becoming dilapidated and really doesnt look like some of the pictures that are in the press.  I was there three months ago for a car show and the front columns were rotted and a real lack of maintenance.  Looked to me like they were putting fresh paint over issues to try and keep it presentable.  These are all indications that the rent that was being paid was not enough to sustain that building, so I bet the college saw that prime piece of land and thought a huge opportunity to tear down the building and build their athletic facility in a prime location.  All colleges are looking for ways to drive revenue so they are either reusing all of this land that has been donated to them over time for something that drives revenue or selling it off.  The museum is just a causality and it is super important to have a succession plan in place for when something can happen such as this.  

 

Here are some more recent pictures.  (Vintage motors is where they sell old cars, so it is not just a pure museum any longer as they opened a sales show room several years ago)

 

 

Here is a picture from a news media article which is an extremely old picture and it doesnt look like this any longer.  

 

 

Here is a picture inside the museum where you can see the ceiling tiles with water damage.

 

 

You can see the rot in the porch roof in this picture and I doubt they would hold cars on top like in the old days. 

 

 

Overall, something needed to be done with the museum and I really hope they find a new home.  I just got an alert from a car show group in the area and the car show will continue there this Saturday.  Business as usual.

 

 

[Trulyvintage]

Any rental or lease is subject to

altercation up to and including

termination.

 

If that presents a problem 

then become an owner.

 

That applies to housing - vehicle

and business property.

 

 

Jim

[CarNucopia]

When you agree to be on a month-to-month lease, you know you might only have a month to leave.

 

I'm on the side of "there is more to the story". A search of court cases shows Mr. Godbey was no stranger to legal proceedings. He lost a $245,000 judgment to a Mark Smith and on another occasion, Mecum Auctions was instructed to garnish his proceeds to settle a suit. Maybe most telling about how the business was run is the language below from the appeal of yet another case:

 

Indeed, Vintage Motors' principal, Martin Godbey, represented to MAC Enterprises that the buyer had refused to close on the sale and that Vintage Motors still had possession of the Porsche. Mr. Godbey later admitted he had stonewalled the owner of MAC Enterprises for forty-five days about the status of the sale: "I led Mr. [Mac]Donald to believe that the closing of the car was going on longer than it did." Vintage Motors also ignored MAC Enterprises' request to return the Porsche.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by CarNucopia (see edit history)

[Steve_Mack_CT]

Ahh so a for profit entity really, a dealer renting month to month, local color on this story is more balanced.  Still wonder what that no doubt world class facility is going to cost Floridians but I digress... 🤔🙄😁

[CarNucopia]

9 minutes ago, Steve_Mack_CT said:

Ahh so a for profit entity really, a dealer renting month to month, local color on this story is more balanced.  Still wonder what that no doubt world class facility is going to cost Floridians but I digress... 🤔🙄😁

So that’s another caution flag on this situation. The museum was a non-profit, but it sublet a portion of the building to a for-profit car business. Both seemingly controlled by Mr. Godbey. 

[Steve_Mack_CT]

5 minutes ago, CarNucopia said:

So that’s another caution flag on this situation. The museum was a non-profit, but it sublet a portion of the building to a for-profit car business. Both seemingly controlled by Mr. Godbey. 

Ahh peeling the onion further....

[Cadillac Fan]

Maybe change the title to: 

 

Florida Classic Car Dealer Evicted by State College With Only Few Weeks’ Notice

 

 

 

[BlueDevil]

I have room for the Pierce Arrow.

[CarNucopia]

6 hours ago, Steve_Mack_CT said:

Ahh peeling the onion further....

Want more?
 

According to their Form 990, all of the Officers, Directors and Trustees of this non-profit are Martin and his son Blake. Nobody else.

[Reynard]

You gotta admit topics like this are a lot more interesting and invite much more discussion than questions like "Will Packard muffler bearings fit my Edsel?" that appear frequently here.

 

 

 

[MochetVelo]

I visited this museum last year... and before that in the '70s when it Bellm's Cars & Music of Yesterday. Starting in 1953, it was Horn's Cars of Yesterday. 

Bellm's was my favorite, as they had a lot of (sometimes) working mechanical organs, orchestrions, etc. It is a shadow of it's glory years, but still a fun place to visit and also right across the street from the Ringling Museum & gardens.

 

Phil

Edited June 15, 2023 by MochetVelo (see edit history)

[Steve_Mack_CT]

3 hours ago, CarNucopia said:

Want more?
 

According to their Form 990, all of the Officers, Directors and Trustees of this non-profit are Martin and his son Blake. Nobody else.

Anyone following this thread is getting an education on some business models in our hobby.  

Interesting what collective knowledge can bring to light.  One can draw their own conclusions about Godbey and New College, but sometimes the story needs to evolve to see it all.  I suspect this is a fairly well followed thread and maybe beneficial to some.

[kfle]

11 minutes ago, Steve_Mack_CT said:

Anyone following this thread is getting an education on some business models in our hobby.  

Interesting what collective knowledge can bring to light.  One can draw their own conclusions about Godbey and New College, but sometimes the story needs to evolve to see it all.  I suspect this is a fairly well followed thread and maybe beneficial to some.

Updated information from the local Sarasota market news.  It was a month to month lease and had nothing to do with politics at all like the big national media implied.  They are going to utilize the space for college offices from other buildings being torn down and retrofitted due a record size enrollment.  Eventually will be torn down and turned into an athletic gym.  

[46 woodie]

First of all, let's stop with the politics. Sports are a huge moneymaker for college's, especially in Florida. If the college owns the property and decides to build a sports complex to lure athletes to enroll in their school it's their choice. Even the smaller colleges in Florida such as UCF are now making huge money every time they play on TV. Ten years ago no one even heard of the school, once they started bringing in better and better players things took off for them. The bottom line is that the school owns the property and can do what ever it want's with it!

[CarNucopia]

50 minutes ago, Steve_Mack_CT said:

Anyone following this thread is getting an education on some business models in our hobby.  

Interesting what collective knowledge can bring to light.  One can draw their own conclusions about Godbey and New College, but sometimes the story needs to evolve to see it all.  I suspect this is a fairly well followed thread and maybe beneficial to some.

This is an information rich topic, so tell me if I should stop going down the rabbit hole...

 

Another interesting thing on their Form 990 is they show "Other Assets" as $4,820. This is the line that would include the value of the collection. For comparison, the AACA Museum shows $10,347,069 on theirs. Below is a side-by-side breakdown of the categories for this asset class. Notice something missing in Sarasota? Like...........all the cars.

 

 this 

Edited June 15, 2023 by CarNucopia (see edit history)

[Steve_Mack_CT]

Agree topic #2 is more intetesting than topic #1.  A potential buyer from these guys might find it really interesting...

[3macboys]

This appears to be a clear case of don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.  You know there's a few of you here that if the old car hobby doesn't work out you can always become an investigative reporter, I suspect the pay is about the same.  Joking aside, this thread demonstrates that there is merit is posting some of the "news" links to the forum, in fairly short order the real story came out and how many of us would have potentially read the online story and never have gotten the Paul Harvey version?

[Crusty Trucker]

8 hours ago, CarNucopia said:

This is an information rich topic, so tell me if I should stop going down the rabbit hole...

 

Another interesting thing on their Form 990 is they show "Other Assets" as $4,820. This is the line that would include the value of the collection. For comparison, the AACA Museum shows $10,347,069 on theirs. Below is a side-by-side breakdown of the categories for this asset class. Notice something missing in Sarasota? Like...........all the cars.

 

 

 

Could it be that the cars are owned by a third party or even many different individuals, not the museum? Could the cars be at the museum "on loan" from the true owners in exchange for free storage or even for compensation?

Even if the museum owner or one of his other corporations or businesses owns all the cars, it doesn't mean that the entity of the museum needs to declare them as assets. The cars may (or may not) appear as personal property somewhere else altogether.

Do other museums such as the AACA need to declare items or vehicles not owned by them but kept on their premises?

One would think a gross misstatement of assets would have been noticed by some type of official review long before this form 990 was exposed here yesterday.

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Crusty Trucker (see edit history)

[prewarnut]

I'm waiting for someone to ask why the Tucker archives at the AACA Museum (not affiliated with the Antique Automobile Club of America) are worth $2.4M.😁

OK, just kidding. Well, the vehicles (despite being the star of the show) don't have to be part of the tax exempt process. Any museum can have objects within its walls on loan (most art museaums do at any given time). The loaned objects are not going down on the 990 as they are not owned, just in custodialship by the entity. Yes, here it may be weird that no major asset is listed but then it also means that the entity has no major tax advantage offset by assets. Pulling 990s from prior years to see the trend can help forensically. It can be hard to wind down a non-profit or foundation and even after disruption and removal of this collection I wouldn't be surprised if the non-profit "lives" on paper in a new guise longer. I've seen such.

[TAKerry]

I think its humorous how another useless msn article has led to a discussion of tax attorneys!

[CarNucopia]

I merely said it was interesting that there were no assets on the Form 990. I have a theory on why, but I don't want to speculate. With regards to doing a forensic audit, that's not possible because the museum lost it's tax exempt status in 2013 and didn't get it reinstated until the end of 2019. This means there is no reporting available before 2019.

 

I will say it's very odd that the second oldest car museum in the country does not own a single artifact.

Edited June 15, 2023 by CarNucopia (see edit history)

[Terry Bond]

Interesting.  An auto sales agency operating as a non-profit "museum" on a college campus.  What could possibly go wrong?

Terry

[CarNucopia]

According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: "the museum will have another four months to move to a new place."