Cash-strapped brokerage head Neil Binder allegedly owes $189,212 in unpaid rent on an Upper West Side retail space formerly occupied by Bellmarc Realty, according to a new lawsuit.
In an April 18 complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court, landlord Marseilles LLC alleged that tenant 103 Broadway Associates Inc. failed to pay rent for several months at 2697 Broadway, a residential building at the corner of 103rd Street where Bellmarc occupied a ground-floor retail store.
The suit alleges that Binder, on behalf of 103 Broadway Associates Inc., signed a five-year lease in 2013 for the office space. The current rent is $26,193 a month and Binder personally guaranteed the lease, the suit alleges.
The building, known as the Marseilles, was built in the 1900s. In 1978, the non-profit West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing acquired the building and converted it into 134 apartments for low-income elderly and handicapped tenants.
The landlord initiated legal proceedings against 103 Broadway Associates this past December “due to its failure to pay the rent and additional rent due,” the complaint alleges. In February, Bellmarc vacated the office and consolidated into a single office at 936 Broadway in the Flatiron district, as TRD reported.
But according to the suit, the tenant owed $132,908 in unpaid rent at that time. Since then, accrued rent totals $189,212, the landlord says.
Binder did not immediately comment. He’s been hit with other allegations of unpaid rent at former Bellmarc offices in recent months.
Amid financial woes, Bellmarc was evicted in 2014 from its office at 681 Lexington Avenue. The residential firm vacated four offices in January 2016, as it consolidated into the Flatiron office.
In December, Great Neck-based First Sterling Corp. filed a suit alleging Bellmarc – via a corporation known as Austin St. Associates Inc. – owes $202,357 in unpaid rent at 936 Broadway.
In a separate lawsuit also filed in December, Bellmarc’s former landlord at 1178 Lexington Avenue claimed it is owed $72,587 in unpaid rent.