Down Town club, which holds two 49-year net leases in FiDi, files for bankruptcy

The Down Town Association, a private nonprofit club, which sold its building in 2018 for $28.2 million, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday. It listed assets of just $74,859 and liabilities of $6.9 million, including $4.1 million in a credit line from its landlord, and another $1.95 million in “alleged unpaid rent.”

The nonprofit’s president wrote in an affidavit filed alongside the bankruptcy filing that the social club has a 49-year lease with the landlord of its location at 60 Pine Street, and a long-term lease for a floor of hotel rooms at 70 Pine Street.

The Down Town Association was founded in 1860.

The landlord at 60 Pine Street, Great Empire Realty LLC, was the company that bought the building from Down Town in 2018 for $28.2 million, in a sale-leaseback transaction.

Before that sale, in 2013, the group signed a 49-year lease with Rose Associates for a portion of the first and second floors at 70 Pine Street. The filing claims Rose has “accelerated the rent” and is seeking $18 million from the private club.

In contrast to the bankruptcy filing’s claims of virtually no assets, the nonprofit’s 2019 federal tax return, called a 990, listed “total assets” of $45 million and $9.6 million of net assets. That document was filed in November 2020, just four months ago. A source said the leases likely had no value and for that reason were not included as assets.