CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — Our partners at Buffalo Business First reported 11 tenants are being sued at the Walden Galleria Mall for allegedly not paying rent.
Pyramid Management Group is the parent company of the Walden Galleria, which filed those suits, none of which have been closed yet.
2 On Your Side's Danielle Church contacted a local attorney to get some insight on lawsuits like these.
"I've seen that Walden has been filing these for the past several months. They're really just probably the only thing to do to try to recover money from tenants right now given COVID and the state of regulations at the time," said Kevin O'Brien, special counsel at Colligan Law.
O'Brien says if a commercial tenant doesn't pay the amount owed, they default and are sent a notice by the landlord before getting evicted.
However, New York State has issued a moratorium, or temporarily paused evictions, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That means Walden Galleria can't evict tenants not paying rent.
"So you're seeing these separate actions because New York State doesn't allow you to do that right now. It's only for payment of back rent under the lease," O'Brien said.
Court records show that Gap, Alex & Ani, White Barn, Bath & Body Works, Victoria's Secret, and Pink are included in the lawsuits.
Five of them have also been filed in Onondaga County.
They are against Mrs. Fields, Beauty is Us, Euphoria, T-Mobile, and Things Remembered.
"They do have some defenses. Walden Galleria was closed for three months, so one of the defenses that has been raised in these cases similar to this is that they were either constructively evicted or in some way precluded from enjoying the purposes of the lease because they weren't allowed in for several months," O'Brien said.
Walden Galleria did receive more than $4.9 million in a forgivable loan from the Paycheck Protection Program.
Pyramid Management group did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
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