Here's What I Think Happened To Derail The St Thomas More Gift Shop

Driven by curiosity on what actually happened to derail the St Thomas More gift store-coffee shop project at the Guild Building in Scranton, a visitor and I put our heads together and came up with this possible explanation. I would stress that this is informed speculation only, subject to correction if more information becomes available.

1. The Catholic Diocese of Scranton, faced with a need to cut costs, moved offices and facilities out of the Guild Building in Scranton, which it owned, and sold the building to Dr Evanish of Scranton, primarily for use as dental and medical offices on the second, third, and fourth floors.
2. One of the facilities it intended to close in selling the building was the Guild Store, located on the ground floor. This sold Catholic books, church supplies, and gifts. Although it had been popular in prior years, it had consistently lost money more recently due to increasing on line shopping.
3. I assume the Diocese's lawyers, adhering to normal professional practice, inserted wording in the sales contract preventing the buyer, Dr Evanish, from renting to any tenant that competed with any Diocesan business. For our purposes, this included the former Guild Store, which, although closed, previously sold Catholic items.
4. Although it doesn't appear to be very active, the Diocese did open an on line store selling items equivalent to what was sold in the former Guild Store. Dr Evanish presumably agreed in the sales contract not to lease to a tenant that would compete with this business.
5. Apparently not knowing about the restrictive wording in the sales contract, Dr Evanish worked with Fr Bergman to lease the ground floor space in the Guild Building to a new business, True Beauty Coffee and Gift Shop, which proposed specifically to revive the former Guild Store operated by the Diocese of Scranton.
6. Dr Evanish appears to have invested money to modify the ground floor space to accommodate this business on the expectation that True Beauty Coffee and Gift Shop would move in and begin to pay rent.
7. At some point the Diocese of Scranton learned of this plan and, recognizing that True Beauty Coffee and Gift Shop would specifically compete with its on line business established to replace the Guild Store, invoked the restrictive wording in the sales contract with Dr Evanish. This probably included a threat to sue.
8. Yeah, if this is what happened, True Beauty Coffee and Gift Shop is dead, dead, dead.

If I were Dr Evanish, I'd be pretty irked with my attorney, who should have been reviewing all the documents connected with this project and who somehow missed what must almost certainly have been restrictive wording in the sales contract. However, I think the Ordinariate's chancellor should have been looking this over as well and can also be held responsible. Bp Lopes should be chatting with Fr Wolfe.

A much bigger question, though, is why both Dr Evanish and Fr Bergman thought a retail business selling church supplies and gifts in a rust belt downtown store would succeed, when the same business had demonstrably failed in the same location.