Excerpted from "Playing by a new set of rules for condo conversions"
The Real Deal, January 2008, by David Jones
After settling a bitter legal dispute with former co-owner Richard Kalikow, developer Jerry O’Connor put together an ambitious plan to convert Manhattan House into a hotel-quality luxury residence, with spa facilities, a resident manager with 65 on-site concierge staff, valet parking, a children’s play center and a 10,000-square-foot rooftop lounge.
But that conversion isn’t moving as smoothly as the developer would like, due in part to tenant complaints. Manhattan House tenants complain that the building suffers from extensive flooding, asbestos contamination, rodents and other problems that the management is trying to cover up.
In an amended filing, Manhattan House officials boosted the insider discount to tenants by 10 points to 25 percent. Only three of the first 15 sales came from insiders, according to the tenants’ group.
4 comments:
Now could the tenants' committee do something about the conditions (eg asbestos, fires, floods in apartments, building-wide water shut offs, mice, ruined hallways etc.)? The recent article by David Jones indicates that the tenant committees of other condo conversions have been doing something about such awful conditions for a long time.
The mgmt memo of 1/8/08 states "We are happy to announce that the garden level work has been completed." This is unfortunate because in place of the previous garden, which contained flowers and benches, there is what could be mistaken for a sampler of the effects of chemical burns on grass, adorned with gray concrete stumps and aluminum strips.
The electronic keys promised in the memo, like the cameras recently installed all around the building, may function better as a devices for tracking tenant movements, than as security measures.
Announcing that "The Manhattan Club will be opened soon for community use," management's letter refers to 1 of 2 sun rooms of which tenants have been deprived for a year. It is unclear to which community management. refers: the cocktail drinking community? the coop owners community? The second room is in use as a storage area. The library comprised of tenants' books was removed from both rooms.
Tenants' committee actions in other buildings are inspiring.
This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows of Judge Stone. He is a long time, active Republican appointee to the benchm and good friend to many "developers" in and around town. This ruling SHOULD be appealed!
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