Over 1,000% rent increase threatens Lemoore business

LEMOORE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – A dance instructing duo says their rent has been increased by 1,200% at the Lemoore Recreation Center, threatening to close their studio, which has over 100 students.

Savanna Mangum and Siena Simas own and operate The Movement Factory LLC.

They say that for the past year, they have grown their studio to over 100 students of all ages, thanks to their hard work teaching dance at the Visalia Recreation Center, in Hanford and the Lemoore Recreation Center.

“It’s really cool to watch the kids come in and grow with us,” Simas said. “Here at the Lemoore rec department, we became really successful really quickly. We had a lot of students, so we had to pull back from Visalia, and they were still wanting us to be there.”

Simas says they had to pull back their classes in Visalia to accommodate teaching in Lemoore, just to have their rent raised from $400 to over $4,000.

According to Mangum, the duo received an email that their rent was increasing by over 1,200%, and that the Lemoore Recreation Center wanted that rate to take effect by next month.

“$4,680,” Simas said. “When I got the email, I had a panic attack. They just pulled the rug out from under our feet.”

Mangum and Simas say city officials gave them a few explanations via email, reasoning that because the dance studio space inside the Lemoore Parks and Rec is available to rent to the public, the center would be raising their rent along with anyone else using that space.

They say they are now left with weeks to come up with the money or find another location.

For now, Mangum says classes at the center don’t feel the same and the duo feels unwanted due to the center’s impersonal communication.

“It really hurts. I just think that they went about it the wrong way,” Mangum said. “So if someone were to reach out saying that they do have a space for us to utilize and pay a rent that’s not over $4,000, we would love that. That would be great.”

YourCentralValley.com reached out to the City of Lemoore but did not receive a response in time for this article’s publication.