Angelina Italian Bistro Fights Gilbert's Real Estate Arm

Bedrock Real Estate Service, the real estate arm from Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, is looking to evict Angelina Italian Bistro, and the restaurant is fighting back, locking the two sides in a legal dispute.

The owner of the restaurant says he was paying less than $1,000 a month in common charges to his previous landlord, but when Bedrock bought the building in 2011 and began renovating it into what is now the M@dison Building, they reportedly raised the common charges to $9,000, higher than the restaurant's $6,400 a month rent. Though they settled on a little more than $2,000 per month when they signed a new lease, the suit alleges that the real estate firm then raised the common charges to over $4,000 at the beginning of 2013. When the Angelina owners protested the charges, they were allegedly served with an eviction notice. The owner tells M Live that "Bedrock, which has renovated the M@dison Building in to a state-of-the-art space with a rooftop patio, has done no physical upgrades to Angelina's."

For its part, Bedrock says they charge market or below market rates to all of their tenants and "make every effort to promote our tenants' businesses by marketing their products and services in numerous way." A court date is scheduled for October
· Angelina Italian Bistro battling Dan Gilbert real estate arm over downtown Detroit building [MLive]
[Photo via Yelp]