Renegotiating a lease: Landlord in Bankruptcy

[Bobo]

A good friend and coworker asked me about this at lunch. I know that several of you know this back to front so I wanted to put it up here first for suggestions.
...and yes, I will make her sign up and join in our Reindeer games


We currently have a lease for a (restaurant Franchise) in a retail shopping center that has filed bankruptcy. Our lease has another 3 years. The building will be going up for auction the end of August. We want to use this opportunity with a new landlord to renegotiate our lease.

There are several points in our favor:
- the shopping center is still maybe 40% occupied after 2 years (40% is a generous estimate)
- we were the first store to open and we were the only tenant open for 8 months
- two other restaurants in the center are either completely closed on Sunday or only open for dinner because Sunday traffic is so slow
- all tenants, including ourselves, are struggling because of the landlord's inability or unwillingness to lease out the shopping center

Any pointers or recommendations for a lawyer who has experience with this type of deal would be greatly appreciated.

 

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[Reefbreak]

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