Drip Coffee sues Kimco Realty, alleging hidden redevelopment plans

Drip Coffee has turned a South Florida coffee dispute into a warning shot for every independent operator eyeing a shopping-center lease. On May 18, the café sued Kimco Realty Corporation in Broward County’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, accusing the landlord of signing multi-year leases while already planning to clear tenants out later for larger retailers.

The complaint says the disputed redevelopment would affect more than 100,000 square feet of the center and would include demolition of an LA Fitness and a movie theater to make way for Target. The case centers on the idea that Drip Coffee was used as a short-term rent source while the property owner kept its larger plans quiet. Taylor Schear, Drip Coffee’s founder and president, said the company believes Kimco had no intention of honoring the lease promises it made and that the business was left paying rent while its prospects were undercut.

The financial pressure is part of what makes the filing sting. Local real-estate coverage says the case seeks about $9 million in damages. One report says Sheer Hospitality, tied to Drip Coffee, has been paying $6,500 a month in rent plus common-area maintenance fees while being offered no alternative retail space at other Kimco holdings in South Florida. The company said the lawsuit followed failed attempts to resolve the dispute.

The redevelopment backdrop helps explain why the fight landed so hard. At Cypress Creek Station in Fort Lauderdale, plans called for a 121,633-square-foot Target, with retail area increasing from 176,098 square feet to 264,788 square feet. The Fort Lauderdale Development Review Committee and Planning and Zoning Board reviewed the project on December 10, 2024, and a $14 million permit in February 2026 suggested construction or tenant build-out was underway or close to it. Kimco was also reported in February 2025 to be seeking approval in Hollywood for a 120,000-square-foot Dick’s House of Sport at Oakwood Plaza, another sign that the company has been replacing older uses with bigger anchors across South Florida.

For coffee operators, the lesson is blunt: the rent figure is only the starting point. A shopping-center lease needs hard language on redevelopment, relocation rights, disclosure of known anchor changes, termination triggers, and who pays if the landlord’s plan wipes out foot traffic or forces a move. If a café is signing into a center where demolition, subdivision, or an anchor swap is already on the table, the lease must say exactly what happens next. That is the issue Drip Coffee put in the open, and it is the part small shop owners cannot afford to skim past.