Law firm sues landlord over Seaport lease increase

Nutter, McLennen & Fish today sued the owner of Seaport West, the tall curved brick office building across Seaport Boulevard from the World Trade Center, over what it says is an outrageous $1-million annual rent increase.

In its complaint, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, the law firm says West Office Operating Limited Partnership calculated what it claimed the law firm owed for the 131,000 square feet on four floors it leases based on a deliberate misinterpretation of a lease provision dating back to the turn of the millennium that should no longer be in force. The building was a joint venture between developer John Drew and Fidelity Investment's real-estate wing.

The provision relates in part to Nutter's share of the "payments in lieu of taxes" the landlord makes under a tax-break program approved for the formerly desolate land near the World Trade Center in the 1990s. Nutter says its lease says that its current annual lease should be based on its payments from the year before but that the landlord instead based an increase on what Nutter paid in 2010.

Nutter at first refused to pay the increase, but says that after West Office sent a "default notice," it began paying the extra amount - under duress.

Nutter is seeking a jury ruling that it's right plus damages and legal fees - it hired a State Street firm to bring the case.

The court docket does not yet show a date by which the landlord has to reply to the suit.