The owner of the Westfield Valley Fair mall in San Jose has sued two retail tenants for not paying a combined $428,000 in back rent.
An affiliate of Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield filed lawsuits against the owners of Zero& and Leafy stores for failing to pay around a year of rent to the mall at 2855 Stevens Creek Boulevard, near Santana Row, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.
This month the affiliate, VF Mall LLC, filed a civil complaint against Newark-based Fuji SF Bay 2103, led by Weiyao, according to state business records, whose 1,500-square-foot Zero& boba drink store was accused of not paying rent since May of last year until February.
The mall seeks $141,000 in back rent, according to the Business Journal.
As part of its suit, Westfield also seeks restitution and possession of the premises, payment of past due rent and charges, forfeiture of the lease and damages equal to $530.14 a day from the start of March for each day the business continues to occupy the shop.
In February, the owner of the mall also sued Leafy LLC, whose 2,700-square-foot home decor and plant store allegedly failed to pay $24,000 in monthly rent from February of last year through January.
At the end of January, the lawsuit says, the business was given a written five-day notice to pay rent or leave the premises. The shop appeared closed last month, according to the newspaper.
The mall seeks $286,961 in back rent from Leafy, according to the Business Journal.
It also seeks restitution and possession of the premises, forfeiture of the lease, payment of past due rent and charges, and damages equal to $727.84 a day from the start of February for each day the business continues to occupy the premises.
The owners of Zero& and Leafy did not respond to requests for comment from the Business Times.
The 2.2-million-square-foot Westfield Valley Fair, the largest mall in Northern California, completed a $1 billion expansion in 2020. It recently added tenants San Francisco restaurateur George Chen and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema,
In February, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield decided to retain ownership of its Westfield Valley Fair and Westfield Oakridge mall in San Jose despite its sale of much of its portfolio of U.S. malls, or the abandonment of the former Westfield San Francisco Centre mall to its creditors.