Charlestown landlord says we need a Fourth Law of Robotics, to deal with building leases

The owners of the Hood Park complex off Rutherford Avenue in Charlestown yesterday filed a $75-million suit against the company that makes those brightly colored little luggage robots you can see roaming around Sullivan Square in a dispute over the lease for space the company was supposed to move into on July 1.

In its suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, Hood Park LLC accuses Piaggio Fast Forward, now based in space on Roland Street in Charlestown, of trying to renege on a lease to move into a Hood Park building at 570 Rutherford Ave. on the other side of I-93.

Hood Park says Piaggio agreed to sign a seven-year lease but then, just before signing, started hedging, at first by claiming its Italian owners didn't want to sign any actual lease longer than four years. The bickering began Piaggio said it would agree to a clause that if it left after four years, it would pay Hood Park the remaining three years of rent in a lump sum, then July 1 came and went and the two sides still didn't have a signed lease in place, and besides, Hood Park said that while it agreed to the basic idea, it wanted its lease payments to start then and that the two sides could work out the early-termination clause as a lease amendment.

But, Hood Park says, Piaggio kept messing around. It included what it said was an e-mail from a Piaggio official as Hood kept waiting for a signed lease:

Though this sounds like "the dog ate my lunch" issue. The PG CEO is in the hospital having broken his femur. We were hoping to get his and the rest of the board's signature by EOD today but it looks like we will need a little more time. Greg is sure he will have the approval by Monday morning the latest, and likely some time during the weekend. As soon as he gets the go ahead he is ready to sign. I know that this is not ideal for all involved but be assured that the project is a "GO" all the way to the CEO of the PG group. Some of their BOD toured the facility this week. They liked what they saw, love the program and are excited for PFF to be in our own building where we can grow and advance our product lines. This is a big step for PFF and the parent organization is fully supportive of the plan.

Hood Park says it had been so eager to have Piaggio Fast Forward join the Hood Park campus that it agreed to let Bunker Hill Community College, which had been using the building, to leave before its lease was up, but that Piaggio is now trying to back out because it realized outfitting the space to turn out what are sort of thinking suitcases on wheels would prove more expensive than it thought.

That, Hood Park declares, is not its problem, and now, so it is seeking the full cost of the original seven-year lease it says the company agreed to, plus the roughly $2.2 million it says it gave up by letting Bunker Hill to move out before the end of its lease, plus real-estate brokers' fees and attorney's fees, or $24.8 million altogether - times three.

Complete Hood Park complaint (9.3M PDF).