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Co-op Board Moves to Evict Quad Cinema Over Unpaid Rent

Greenwich Village, Manhattan

Co-op eviction, Quad Cinema, co-op board, unpaid rent, noise complaints.

This isn't the first time the co-op board has moved to evict Quad Cinema.

Feb. 3, 2025

First it was noise. Now it's unpaid rent. And so, for the second time in seven years, the co-op board at 30-32 W. 13 St. in Greenwich Village is moving to evict billionaire Charles Cohen's Quad Cinema from the premises, The Real Deal reports.

An auction is scheduled for Feb. 18 on the court house steps in Lower Manhattan. Matthew Mannion of Mannion Auctions is the auctioneer. The auction notice suggests that Cohen owes unpaid rent plus attorney fees and other expenses totaling $600,000. The notice lists the base rent of the lease, which runs through Dec. 31, 2026, at $22,171 per month.

The foreclosure was initiated by the co-op board, which had to turn to the Uniform Commercial Code to foreclose because a co-op is technically a corporation and the residents are considered shareholders. In this case, the auction is for 1,023 shares of common stock, giving the winning bidder control of the lease.

This is not the co-op board's first rodeo with Cohen. In 2018, a year after the four-screen theater underwent a major renovation, a resident on the building's second floor complained about excessive noise from the theater's speakers and HVAC equipment. Cohen sued, successfully, to block the board from terminating his lease.

Steven Cherniak, Cohen Brothers Realty Corp.'s chief operating officer, maintains that the two parties are working toward a solution to the new dispute over unpaid rent. “This matter is being resolved," Cherniak says.

Cohen has faced far larger problems. In March 2024, Fortress Investment Group sued Cohen Realty Enterprises, alleging that it defaulted on a $534 million loan and that Cohen owed over $187 million in personal guarantees. Fortress then submitted a credit bid of $148.7 million and won control of assorted Cohen properties at a foreclosure auction. Forbes estimates that Cohen's worth is now $1.6 billion, down from a peak of $3.7 billion in 2022.

Given those blockbuster numbers, the unpaid rent at Quad Cinema is a B-movie at best.

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