An Art Deco hotel on vibrant Washington Avenue facing allegations it owes former employees thousands of dollars says, in part, that it's struggling financially.

Astor EB-5 LLC — registered in state records at 956 Washington Ave., the address for the 42-room, three-story Hotel Astor in Miami Beach — has been sued three times for more than $70,000 total in recent months.

One defense attorney's response pulls the curtain on the hotel's books.

“Astor has suffered numerous economic hardships, too numerous to catalog, making it impossible to pay plaintiffs,” Miami attorney Kevin Guanaga wrote in a Nov. 3 defense of Astor EB-5.

Two of the lawsuits also name David Hart, who said he is manager of Hotel Astor. Hart declined to comment.

The litigation over unpaid money starts with former staff member Liza Praman, who filed wage and hour federal statutory violation counts under the Fair Labor Standards Act in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

Astor EB-5 and Hart didn't pay her for overtime she worked between February 2016 and April 2017, according to the June 30 complaint. In a follow up claim filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida after defense attorneys moved the litigation to that court, Praman said she is owed $11,944, according to court records.

Anthony M. Georges-Pierre, the Remer & Georges-Pierre PLLC attorney in Miami who filed the lawsuit, declined to comment.

Rodolfo Gomez, the FordHarrison LLP attorney in Miami who represents Astor EB-5 and Hart, did not return a request for comment.

But in an Aug. 4 response he argued Praman wasn't entitled to overtime pay because she was an executive- and administrative-exempt employee who worked for more than $455 a week doing nonmanual management work. He also argued that if she worked overtime, she never reported it to superiors, court records show.

“Plaintiff is not entitled to additional compensation because plaintiff failed to notify or deliberately prevented defendant from acquiring knowledge of the alleged overtime she claims to have worked,” Gomez wrote in the response.

A month after Praman made her claims, hotel management company STEM LLC and founder and CEO Robert van Eerde sued. STEM, which on its website says it manages hotels in the U.S. and China, managed Hotel Astor but they parted ways, signing a termination agreement, according to court records.

STEM is owed $18,000 of an agreed $43,000 in the termination agreement that was supposed to be made in $1,500 monthly installments, although Astor EB-5 and Hart made the initial $25,000 lump sum payment, according to the Aug. 31 Miami-Dade Circuit Court complaint.

The lawsuit lists a breach of contract count against the hotel and Hart and a fraud in the inducement count against Hart, saying he lied that he would pay the monthly installments. It also lists a damage to reputation count against the hotel and Hart stemming from allegations that they went back on their promise to pay a photographer hired by STEM in part with free room stays.

Barry Chase, the Miami attorney who filed the lawsuit, declined to comment.

Hart, who also is an attorney, represents himself in this case. Miami attorney Guanaga, representing Astor EB-5, didn't return a request for comment.

Hart and Guanaga in separate responses Nov. 3 argue in part that the separation agreement dismisses them from damage to reputation allegations. This also is Guanaga's response in which he referenced the hotel's “economic hardships.” And he also filed a counterclaim against STEM and van Eerde in part saying that STEM lacked the expertise to manage Hotel Astor and failed to do its jobs, such as preparing financial reports and staff payroll.

The counter lawsuit lists a tortious interference count and a breach of separation agreement stemming from allegations that STEM and van Eerde breached the confidentiality part of the separation agreement when they shared parts of the agreement with others, court records show.

Specifically, the hotel is alleging that STEM talked with Eli Kostbar and his attorney, Richard Celler.

Kostbar is the third plaintiff to sue Astor EB-5 this year, although he didn't sue Hart, saying he is owed $30,000, court records show. The money is part of a $90,000 settlement between the two reached after a 2014 lawsuit Kostbar filed alleging he wasn't paid more than $120,000 in wage and benefits for his work as the former general manager, according to court records.

Richard Celler, of Richard Celler Legal PA in Davie, filed the more recent lawsuit.

“When they [hotel] fired him [Kostbar], they did so in our opinion in an effort to avoid their obligation under the [employment] agreement. Rather than just pay the guy, they strung out the litigation for years and … a settlement agreement was reached,” Celler said. “As a courtesy to Mr. Hart we gave him a payment plan, because he claimed the hotel was lacking in funds at that time. He made the first payment and subsequently defaulted on the remaining payment.”

Guanaga, who represents Astor EB-5 in the lawsuit Kostbar filed this year, said in a Nov. 16 court filing that Hotel Astor had to close because of Hurricane Irma and either couldn't raise or lost money it had earmarked to pay back Kostbar.

The Real Deal, which was the first to report on the Kostbar as well as STEM and van Eerde lawsuits, also has reported that Astor EB-5 in 2015 secured 18 investors through the EB-5 Visa program for $9 million in renovations.