It may be checkout time for Aby Rosen at another one of his hotel properties.
Rosen, Michael Fuchs and their company RFR Holding are battling with landlord Commerz Real in three separate lawsuits over the Soho luxury hotel 11 Howard.
The German asset manager filed a petition in February to evict RFR from the 211-room hotel; A hearing is set for April 3. A new lawsuit filed this week by the landlord claims RFR owes more than $18 million in back rent, taxes, insurance and other costs.
Meanwhile, RFR alleges in another complaint filed in January that Commerz violated its lease agreement by “shopping the property around” to potential buyers despite RFR’s contractual right of first offer to buy the building, according to a separate lawsuit filed by RFR.
A spokesperson for RFR declined to comment. Lawyers for Commerz did not respond to a request for comment.
RFR bought the 114,500-square-foot, 14-story former Holiday Inn from Procaccianti Group in 2014 for $89.7 million. It says it spent “tens of millions of dollars” to renovate the building. The upscale hotel opened in 2016.
A week after opening, Commerz bought the hotel from RFR, which included an agreement to lease the building back from the landlord for 10 years with options to extend for another 10 years and ultimately buy the building back. If RFR were to exercise its repurchase option, the Commerz investment would end up as a de facto loan.
In its lawsuit, RFR claims Commerz “was happy to watch [RFR] turn its building into a luxury property,” then used “defective default and termination notices” in order to undermine RFR’s right of first offer.
The landlord sent RFR its first nonpayment notice in October 2023.
Commerz, meanwhile, claims RFR racked up $18.1 million in unpaid rent and related costs by the end of January. It sent a 15-day lease termination notice on Feb. 11. In this latest suit, it is seeking to collect the money, including $2.8 million in real estate taxes that it says Rosen and Fuchs jointly guaranteed.
After a rough 2024, the year has gotten off to a rocky start for Rosen. A Manhattan judge in January ruled that RFR’s ground lease with Cooper Union at the iconic Chrysler Building was terminated and ordered Rosen’s company ejected from the property.
But RFR closed in February on a $1.2 billion CMBS loan to refinance the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue and also recapitalized 475 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan after facing a foreclosure threat from its lenders.
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