CHS has learned more about the legal tussle between the operator of Grey Gallery and the building owner who claims $80,000 in damages when the lounge was abruptly moved out of the 11th Ave location it called home for more than two years. We’ve also learned that the space will soon be put back into business. More on that, below.

“I don’t have a lot of recourse except to sue,” Basta told CHS earlier this week. “When he left the space, he took the heating system, base boards, the finishes. It’s just unreasonable. It’s not the things you reasonably do in the tenant’s situation.”

CHS reported previously on the $80,000 lawsuit filed by Matt Basta against Grey’s owner Erik Guttridge. According to court documents, Basta claims Guttridge left behind significant damage to his building at 1512 11th Ave when Grey Gallery moved out in June because of rising rent and what Guttridge said was a rocky relationship with Basta. The suit claims breach of contract and negligence on the part of Guttridge by “leaving behind substantial damages in an amount to be proven at trial.”

Guttridge tells CHS he took nothing he was not entitled to.

“My mantra was to take my trade fixtures that I put into that space,” Guttridge said. “To leave it as close to what Basta wanted. He wanted a turnkey bar that he could lease immediately. He felt entitled to my stuff.”

Guttridge said everything he removed from the building is needed if he is to open Grey again at another location. “It was all fixtures that I needed to open a new place,” Guttridge said.

Guttridge also cites a list of improvements he did leave behind including an ADA-approved bathroom, redone walls, a new storefront and the cost he split with Basta on the new awning.

But Basta said that was the deal and that Guttridge told him he would be leaving many of the other Grey Gallery improvements behind. Only one problem. Because of a complicated series of events between Basta, a former property manager (who Basta sued in 2009) and Grey, the paperwork in this transaction is a bit of a mess. “In hindsight, I should have pressed him for a lease,” Basta said.

Instead, after months of back and forth dodging, Grey balked at Basta’s asking price of $36 per square feet for the space and decided to move on, Guttridge said.

Now, Basta is pushing the matter toward court. He ways Guttridge won’t accept service of the suit and is being difficult. Guttridge says he is still hoping to negotiate. Basta says he has been offered the opportunity to buy the fixtures back from Guttridge. Guttridge says this suit is Basta’s attempt to “bleed me dry.” In the business, they call this negotiation.

As for his public plea for legal help that we published earlier this week, Guttridge wouldn’t say if he now has things covered but he did say things are in motion. “I’ve gotten a really good response,” Guttridge said.

Things aren’t so bad for Basta, either. He said he’s about to sign a lease with a new tenant for the former Grey space. “I’m negotiating a lease for the space and hope to sign it this week,” Basta said. Basta said the new tenant will be “a local business person with experience in the bar and restaurant industry.”

Basta said the episode is forcing him to reconsider his role as a Pike/Pine landowner. He began leasing the building in 1995 and bought it in 2000. “I also own property in Belltown. I’d hate to see Pike/Pine become another Belltown situation,” Basta said. “We have an opportunity to develop something that is uniquely… It can’t be done by tearing down every building and building mixed use.”

Now he’s thinking he might be done with the business.

“It makes me reconsider why I don’t sell it to somebody else, these kinds of headaches,” Basta said. His tenant list might be one of the more diverse set of retailers in the area including Purr, The Crypt and Crybaby Studios. “I’ve been using the same lease for year. I just had my attorney draw up a new lease form,” Basta said. “The old form was 12 pages. The new form is 50.”

“It’s really a changing world,” Basta said. “It’s disappointing me to that there are people [who] are not as honorable.”