Condo Board at The Beacon Tower Files Lawsuit

85 Adams Street

NY Post reports that the condo board at 85 Adams Street, the building known as The Beacon Tower, has filed a $150million Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit citing nearly 100 construction problems. They are accusing the sponsors and the architect of committing mail fraud after obtaining a temporary certificate of occupancy.

The NY Post story mentions:

“To obtain the certificate, the engineer and architect signed Building Department documents verifying that fire stops were present when the board’s engineers later found none were installed, the complaint says.

Sales material for the 23-story tower at 85 Adams St. boasted of “a curvilinear louvered top … lit internally creating a beacon of light that will announce Beacon Tower’s position at the apex of the DUMBO community.”
But the light went out and there is no way to get to it to fix it, according to Steve Sladkus of Wolf Haldenstein, the lawyer for the board.

In addition, the complaint lists a litany of woes, including counter tops that are too high, parapet walls that are too low, improperly placed sprinklers, water leaks and unsafe windows.”

The suit claim the sponsors knew about these issues but were not communicated to the buyers in the offering plan. The sponsors named were: Jeshayahu, aka Shaya Boymelgreen, the Boymelgreen Family, AI Properties and Developments (USA), the sales brokers at Corcoran Brooklyn, the architects Cetra/Ruddy, two engineering firms and others.

There are 79 units in the building and of the 91 recorded sales data compiled by Streeteasy.com, the average price per square feet was $751. There are two active listings (#4D for $875k and #10C for 685k) and two listings in contract (#3C 650k and #4C $629k).

Let’s hope the lawsuit doesn’t take 5 years as it did for the 50 Bridge Street lawsuit.

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