Uniqlo is taking its Newbury Street landlord to court, claiming it has been overbilled for shared building expenses at its Back Bay storefront. The lawsuit targets Gazit Horizons, which owns the six-story building at 341 Newbury St., and zeroes in on how common-area charges are calculated and how the building’s square footage is reported. The dispute landed in court this week and could ripple across how tenants on high-rent Newbury Street are billed for pass-through costs.
According to the Boston Business Journal, Uniqlo alleges that Gazit Horizons “wrongly charged it for common areas and inflated its proportionate share after reducing the building's total square footage.” The outlet reports that the filing effectively challenges the math landlords use to compute tenants’ shares of operating costs. The article was published June 11.
The Uniqlo store sits at 341 Newbury St., a six-story building Gazit acquired in 2019, according to Bisnow. Property listings describe the building as roughly 49,000 square feet following a 2016 conversion from a parking garage to mixed retail and office use and list Uniqlo as a ground-floor tenant, per LoopNet. Those square-footage figures sit at the heart of how landlords divide up common expenses among tenants.
What the complaint says
Uniqlo’s filing claims Gazit reduced the building’s total square footage, which serves as the denominator landlords use to calculate each tenant’s proportionate share, then billed Uniqlo for a larger slice of common-area costs, according to the Boston Business Journal. The retailer contends that this reclassification of space effectively shifted costs onto remaining tenants such as Uniqlo. The complaint asks the court to sort out how those charges were calculated and whether past billings need to be corrected.
Why square footage and CAM disputes matter
Commercial leases often require tenants to pay a proportionate share of common-area maintenance (CAM) and operating expenses, with that share typically calculated by dividing a tenant’s leased square footage by the building’s total leasable area, according to FindLaw. Disagreements over which measurement controls — rentable, usable, or gross square footage — can significantly change a tenant’s yearly bill. Many leases also build in audit rights, caps on increases, or reconciliation mechanisms that tend to become flashpoints when the numbers are disputed.
What comes next
The case is poised to generate document-heavy discovery, with year-end reconciliations, lease exhibits, and vendor invoices likely to be front and center as both sides argue who paid what and why. If a court finds that the landlord miscalculated tenants’ shares, Uniqlo could pursue refunds, credits, or changes to future billing; if not, the obligation to cover those CAM charges may stand as billed. Either outcome could nudge other retailers in Boston’s pricey retail corridors to take a harder look at long-running billing practices.
Court docket entries are expected to reveal more detail about Uniqlo’s claims and any requested remedies in the coming weeks. This story will be updated as additional filings and public statements emerge.
