Haas Halls Lease Dispute Could Be Costly

Final exams have arrived for Haas Hall Academy.

As the high-achieving charter school transitions to new spaces in Fayetteville and Bentonville, it’s also fending off a nasty lawsuit from its soon to be former landlord, Tracy Hoskins and his Paradigm Building LLC.

Counting the construction contracts and the potential penalty should Haas Hall lose the lawsuit, the school has about $2 million riding on the line.

According to public records, there’s about $700,000 in construction underway at the new Fayetteville campus, and about $960,000, all but finished, at the new Bentonville campus.

Meanwhile, Hoskins filed suit in Washington County Circuit Court saying Haas Hall is trying to sneak out of its three-year lease obligations. He’s asking the court to make the school pay the lease through the full term — about $500,000 — to June 2017, even though Haas Hall is vacating the building at 3155 N. College Ave. next month.

In response, Haas Hall said Hoskins is a cruddy landlord whose building is in cruddy condition, and his multiple failures as a landlord justify the school’s vacating the premises. Haas Hall even said Hoskins has already spent the $22,728 in security deposits the school paid when it first moved into the building.

There are also accusations of strong arm tactics, unclean hands, unjust enrichment, and having one’s cake and eating it, too. If the lawsuit has the whiff of a civil war, consider that Hoskins is on the Fayetteville Planning Commission, and Haas Hall founder Martin Schoppmeyer is on the Fayetteville City Council.

A non-jury trial is scheduled for June 29.