LEGAL/FINANCIAL

When an explosion in the East Village left two people dead and three buildings in ruins last year, New Yorkers got a grisly reminder just how serious - and deadly - gas leaks can be. So when a worker at the Ronald Feldman Fine Arts gallery in Soho smelled gas a few months after the East Village explosion, everyone went on high alert.

The fire department rushed to the elegant cast-iron building at 31-33 Mercer Street, a five-story, 12-unit co-op that's home to the Feldman gallery and an eclectic mix of artists, architects, writers and photographers - the kind of people who used to live in Soho before it became a sprawling shopping mall. The building's gas was immediately shut off. Crews from Con Ed and the city's Department of Buildings (DOB) arrived, beginning an ordeal that would spiral into a "nightmare," in the words of the co-op board's president.

But this nightmare inspired some creative financial thinking that got the building healthy - and safe - while saving the shareholders a pile of money.

Read more

It rose on lower Broadway in the 19th century as headquarters for the New York Life Insurance Co. More recently it housed New York City Criminal Court. In 2013, this 13-story, 419,000-square-foot behemoth became the single largest building ever sold by the City of New York – for the princely sum of $160 million.

Now it’s being converted – shocker! – into luxury condos.

Miami-based Peebles Corp. has secured a $334 million construction loan from Bank of America to convert the structure – also known as the Clock Tower Building – into 151 condo apartments, plus a 7,210-square-foot communal facility and 2,200 square feet of commercial space, reports Commercial Observer. The conversion is being designed by Beyer Blinder Belle, with a penthouse apartment that will include the building’s iconic rooftop clock.

The building is a city landmark and is also on the National Register of Historic Places.

Read more

Co-op and condo boards must take any reports of mold in their buildings seriously – and address them quickly, thoroughly and properly. Here are a few basics all boards should know:

Read more

Robert Valdes-Clausell, who engineered a devastating bankruptcy at a Queens co-op and was also an activist for historic preservation in the borough, died in a single-car crash on Astoria Boulevard on Sunday afternoon, according to the NYPD.

Valdes-Clausell, 56, was killed when his Ford Explorer crossed three lanes of traffic and crashed into a concrete barrier, as reported by DNAinfo. He was pronounced dead at Elmhurst Hospital.

As a board member of the Newtown Civic Association, Valdes-Clausell fought to keep historical buildings intact and advocated reopening of the LIRR station in Elmhurst, which was shuttered in 1985 due to low ridership. Under an MTA agreement between the city and state last year, the station will reopen in 2019, at a cost of $31 million.

Valdes-Clausell was the live-in property manager at a 150-unit Elmhurst co-op, now known as The Continental Park, when he took it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. The saga of the co-op’s bankruptcy and recovery was reported last year by Habitat in an article entitled “Newly Minted.”

Read more

Hampton House, located at 404 E. 79th Street in Manhattan, has a health club facility within the common elements of the condominium. The board recently revised its health club membership agreement which, among other things, required the person using the club to assume responsibility for any injury suffered while working out.

In September 2011, the building underwent an elevator upgrade, and a key fob system was installed. When John Oriogun, a unit-owner in the building, sought to obtain a key fob to the health club floor, the board told Oriogun that he had to sign the membership agreement. Oriogun sued, alleging that as a unit-owner he had the right to use the area; that the board had no right to modify the membership agreement; and that the agreement was improper because it required a full and complete waiver of liability.

Read more

A resident in an Upper East Side condo recently asked: Is our building open to prosecution for allowing a 16-year-old doorman to work a double shift on a Sunday during the school year?

The answer is yes, says the Ask Real Estate column in The New York Times, since city law does not allow anyone to quit school until 17 years old and state laws generally forbid anyone under 17 from working more than one 8-hour shift in a day.

“(Does the board) have a responsibility to this child to enforce the rules?” Walter K. Harman Jr., a Manhattan labor lawyer, said of the teenage doorman. “Morally, I say yes. Absolutely.”

In violating child labor laws, a co-op or condo board could leave itself open to getting sued, fined, or investigated by the State Department of Labor. Shareholders or unit owners could wind up having to cover legal fees and fines, leading to an assessment or an increase in monthly maintenance or common charges.

Read more

It’s every co-op and condo board’s worst nightmare: your property manager is a crook. Could anything make it worse? How about a technicality on your insurance policy that allows the insurance company to deny your claim? Believe it or not, if you don’t read the fine print or you get the wrong type of crime insurance, it could happen to you.

Read more

High-end Manhattan condo developer DDG is making its first foray across the East River to Brooklyn to undertake its first conversion project. Working with Westbrook Partners, DDG plans to convert the former Standish Arms Hotel in Brooklyn Heights into a luxury condominium.

Westbrook and DDG purchased the elegant 12-story, 120-unit building from Taurus Investment Holdings last summer for $60 million, Crain’s reports. Taurus had converted the Standish, located at 169 Columbia Heights, from a hotel to luxury rental apartments in 2008.

The condo conversion will be DDG’s eighth development in the city. The company is known for luxury residential buildings that feature handmade bricks from Denmark as a design signature.

Read more

If living way up in the sky is your idea of heaven, we’ve got good news for you. The Italy-based Pizzarotti Group has confirmed to Curbed that it plans to wedge an 86-story condo tower into the shoulder-to-shoulder Financial District in lower Manhattan.

The building, at 45 Broad Street, was designed by CetraRuddy and will be 1,100 feet tall, which easily qualifies it for admission into the city’s growing club of so-called “supertalls.” (A height of at least 984 feet is required for admission.) The tower will have 245 condo apartments that will cater to “entry- and mid-level buyers,” says Pizzarotti CEO Rance MacFarland. In addition to a pool, gym and lounge, there will be five floors of commercial space. Plans call for ground to be broken late this year, with a completion date in 2018.

Read more

When people slip on ice and snow, co-op and condo boards face potential liability. They can avoid such woes by hiring an outside contractor to remove ice and snow from the property – and take on liability for any mishaps. So it makes sense to hire the work out, right? Not necessarily.

Read more