LEGAL/FINANCIAL

At 3 A.M. Tuesday this week, a five-alarm fire broke out at the Dorian condo development. The fire spread quickly, engulfing the building's fourth, fifth, and sixth floors and required nearly 250 firefighters to finally contain it by 7 in the morning. Although the cause of the fire is still unknown, the nightmarish scene really could have been so much worse. For starters, nobody was hurt — it helped that the building was empty. The Real Deal reports that, fortunately (given the situation) a fire watch company was on site at the time of the blaze. Furthermore, "structural engineers and officials from the city’s Department of Buildings have inspected what remains of the building, and determined that it appears to be structurally sound." Citing a press release from the developer, TRD added that the site was fully insured, and [Delshah] plans proceed with work." Originally slated to be completed by the end of 2016, the Dorian will be a 40,000-square-foot luxury condo building with 14 units, including full-floor penthouses on the upper four floors. 

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Your co-op or condo is probably properly insured. But that may not be enough to cover the cost of repair, especially if the incident is major: a construction crane falls against a condominium building and damages the façade and several apartments; a fire creates havoc on several floors with smoke and water damage; a storm rips a roof off a co-op building and exposes shareholder units to wind and weather-related damage. "The insurance company gives a determination of what happened, what was damaged, whether it is covered, and what the cost would be to repair the damage," explains Ed Mackoul, president of Mackoul & Associates, an insurance brokerage. But, he adds: "The insured are not always happy with the result they get."

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It's been a few months since we've heard any noise coming from Park Slope about the Pavilion Theater condo conversion project. Locals gave the first renderings a resounding thumbs down, likening the design to a penitentiary in Sunset Park. It was back to the drawing board for Hidrock Realty, which got the nod to proceed from Community Board 6's Landmarks and Land Use Committee — on the condition that architects tone down the design. The committee asked to see a less bright brick color and for the five-story building to be set back so it looks less bulky and more in line with the neighborhood's late 19th-century architecture. According to DNAinfo, Hidrock Realty is ready with its revised plans. "The tweaked renderings show that Morris Adjmi Architects made several changes, including setting back the fifth floor of the proposed six-story condo building by 6 feet and making the cornice more prominent to blend in better with neighboring buildings on Bartel-Pritchard Square," reports DNAinfo, adding that "the brick color for the building has been warmed up, and some of the windows in the ground-floor commercial space are now smaller." Will it cut the mustard for Community Board 6 members and other community activists? Well, according to the report, neighbors said Monday "they appreciated Hidrock's revisions, but want the developer to make even more changes." 

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Extra meetings are helpful because they make board operations more transparent and keep residents in the loop, which should cut down on rumors and other misinformation. For instance, a 35-unit Bronx co-op staged a second shareholders' meeting because the board needed to raise money. 

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Transparency goes a long way to keeping shareholders in a co-op happy, but that doesn't mean boards should share every single detail about every single thing. The formula for how much boards share varies from building to building, naturally, and sometimes it causes friction among shareholders who may feel like they are being kept in the dark. That's the case with one shareholder who writes to Ronda Kaysen in this week's Ask Real Estate column in The New York Times: "Does the co-op board have any responsibility to communicate with shareholders? We have a meeting once a year, and the minutes are never distributed to shareholders afterward. Our maintenance went up this year and the board kept the real estate rebate. Do we have a right to know what these funds will be used for?" Kaysen explains that by law, boards "must provide shareholders with copies of the minutes of the annual meeting (but not the monthly meetings); an annual financial statement; and, upon request, a list of the shareholders and their mailing addresses. Some proprietary leases contain a provision that entitles shareholders to review the corporation’s operating records and managing statements." In this case, Kaysen observes, the board seems to be doing less than the bare minimum required. "If the board refuses to distribute the financial statement or the minutes from the annual meeting," she says, "shareholders could sue the board in state court to compel it to do so." And of course, if you don't like how a current board is handling things, you can run for the board or nominate someone you feel will have the building's best interests at heart. 

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If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times: no good deed goes unpunished. Serving on a co-op or condo building's board can be pretty thankless work, especially when things go bad. After a contractor hammered a nail into the floor, accidentally puncturing the gas pipe running underneath, Con Edison shut the gas off at Chelsea Seventh Condominium and left behind the dreaded red tag. The 120-unit condominium, located at 170 West 23rd Street, would remain gasless for the next four months. And people were not happy about it. 

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East 95th Street is no stranger to luxury towers. Take the Normandie Court, for example: 4 towers, 34 floors, 1,477 apartments. It's about to get some company. Well, in just under two years, anyway. A 30-story condo tower is due to rise at East 95th, and according to the developer — Extell Development Company — units will be priced between $2.8 and $20 million. DNAinfo reports that Extell — the developer behind Midtown's One57 and a controversial luxury tower on the East River waterfront — has dubbed the project The Kent. It "will include 83 units, with sales expected to begin early next year, according to Katherine McPherson, a spokeswoman for Extell." The tower is scheduled to be completed by fall or winter 2017.

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Earlier this year, the developer behind the condo conversion of Dumbo's 10 Jay Street won over the Landmarks Preservation Commission with a design that paid tribute to the building's history as a sugar refinery. It used glass pieces in the façade to represent the crystal-like shine of sugar. It was certainly a step away from the usual glass and steal high-rises or the Jenga towers proliferating in neighborhoods like Tribeca. So it's kind of a bummer to hear that plans for the unusual building have been scrapped. According to The Real Deal, the developer plans to keep the "warehouse as a commercial property, citing rising demand in the Brooklyn office market." All may not be lost, however, at least aesthetically speaking. TRD reports that the developer will keep the ODA New York-designed crystallized façade, "but instead of converting the warehouse to 46 condos, it will now market the building’s approximately 200,000 square feet for office and retail uses." At least those of us who never had a chance of snapping up one of those condos will still have something pretty to look at. 

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The Wallace Avenue co-op is filled with ordinary people who just wanted to have a home of their own. Michael Williams is typical. In 1990, Williams, a contract administrator for the city, moved into the recently converted co-op with his bride. He was elected to the co-op's board, on which he would serve in various positions over the next dozen years. He felt right at home in a building that's solidly middle class. His neighbors didn't have bottomless pockets, but they were working people — teachers and nurses, with a few lawyers and doctors as well.

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Not every new condo construction looks like a Jenga tower. Just check out the Landmarks Preservation Commission-approved condo building rising at 130 Seventh Avenue South in the West Village. YIMBY reports that that the 7-story structure now boasts a teaser site, a new address (175 West 10th Street), and a new rendering. Moving away from the cold glass and steel high-rise model, this building has a traditional red-brick façade with a modern twist: it's "broken up with large, irregularly spaced sets of windows." The ground floor will be retail space, "topped by four stories of floor-through condos, and then a penthouse duplex for the sixth and seventh floors. Each apartment will measure about 2,500 square feet." Very nice. If you're wondering about the sticker price, it's too soon to tell, but sales are expected to launch early next year, and work is expected to finish in fall 2016.

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