The Condo sign on a restless 1,400-foot luxury tower on the Row of the billionaires of New York City accuses developers of “deliberate and far-reaching fraud” by not revealing in the vicinity of early cracks in the facade that can lead to dangerous structural problems.
Condo board members say that CIM Group and other developers from 432 Park Avenue have not warned potential buyers and city inspectors about the severity of cracks in the characteristic white concrete facade that also “acts as a critical part of the structural support of the building,” said a new lawsuit. The building was opened in 2015.
The lawsuit, submitted to the State Supreme Court at the end of last month, also mentions an engineering firm and an architectural firm bound to the construction of the building as the defendants. The board is looking for compensation of more than $ 165 million, including “reducing the value of the building and its units.”
The lawsuit describes almost 1,900 defects that originated in the facade of the building, one of the various slender apartment buildings Known as “SuperTalls” He punishes the skyline of Manhattan. Photos in the submission show vein -like cracks and pieces of concrete that are missing in the facade.
The suit accuses the defendants of knowing about the cracks early, but, concerned about their business results, not to tackle them sufficiently and to cover their effects instead.
“This issue extends beyond negligence in an alleged schedule, powered by greed, that trusted trust,” said Terrence Ooved, a lawyer for the Condo Board, in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Cim Group said that the company “fiercely” refused the claims and was planning to dismiss the complaint. A lawyer for SLCE architects, one of the defendants, also denied the allegations and raised plans to reject the complaint. The other defendants have not sent any requests for comments.
The Avenue building park marked a turning point in the development of luxury apartments in the city when it opened and the rich part-time residents and investors who hid their identity behind Shell companies. The tower pulled the will of Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez, who had an apartment of $ 15.3 million, 4,000 square feet for a year, and a Saudi retail and real estate tycoon bought a penthouse. The building had an expected value of more than $ 3 billion.
The lawsuit follows other legal steps that the apartment for developers submitted in 2021 after the New York Times revealed dissection Among residents who complained about floods that caused damage to millions of dollars, dumps that sounded like garbage bombs, lifts and swinging with regard to the slender profile of the building. That lawsuit is looking for $ 160 million in compensation and is awaiting the court.
It was a difficult piece for the long, luxury towers of New York.
Build on 1 seaport in the South Street Seaport district in Manhattan has stopped In the aftermath of lawsuits after the tower leaned. And in Brooklyn, Only a handful of units have been sold In the Brooklyn Tower, the first Supertall of the municipality, which was plagued by financial drama.
The most recent lawsuit that more than 432 Park Avenue was submitted took shape when lawyers for the board took seven million pages with documents and about 100 days of deposits to the 2021 lawsuit.
In the new lawsuit, lawyers presented a detailed explanation of defects in the tower for the board that emerged from the start.
Plans for the building called for a natural white concrete facade, which was a unique challenge for a slender tower of that height. The concrete had to be strong enough to resist all floors on top of each other and stiff enough to hold against winds that would push against the building during storms.
Andreas Tselebidis, the designer of the concrete mix, said that it was “the biggest challenge ever asked by a side -and -ready mix producer,” said the suit.
Mr. Tselebidis did not respond to a request for comment.
Cracks came over vertical columns in every mock-up test for a period of six months, the suit said.
The company of Rafael Viñoly, the star architect who led the design, had repeatedly expressed concern about cracking.
“It is difficult to know the impact of Kraken in a fully charged building,” the company wrote in a field report on December 17, 2012, which was cited in the court case. “It is necessary that the concrete consultant assesses and advises these conditions.”
The next day, Silvian Marcus of WSP, the building engineer of the building, one of the defendants in the court case, also expressed their concern and developers to “hold the pour” until they had a “valid” white concrete mix.
Mr Viñoly died in 2023. Mr. Marcus did not return any requests for comments.
The developers forged, the suit said, and ordered the concrete to be cast the following month.
According to the suit, cracks even came forward at the start of the casting process. It said that the concrete supplier “still experimented with design mixes” three months after the start of the construction of the facade and without understanding the cause of the cracks or how to prevent them.
The result was a luxury tower, briefly the highest residential building in the world, with “thousands and thousands of cracks” that began to form, the suit said.
Ideas were written around to stop cracking different coatings and patching. Four separate consultants were hired. But the suit accuses developers of ignoring some of the repair ideas “because of potential schedule, costs and aesthetic effects.”
In April 2016, one of the consultants issued a report with 1,893 defects, more than half of which are categorized as ‘life safety articles’. Thousands of other cracks were patched during construction, the suit said. Some mistakes were aesthetic and others were “big voids, spalls of unknown origin, non -filled cracks, cracks opened and other serious shortcomings,” said the suit.
Developers ended with repairs that did not stop the floods, nor prevented cracking, according to the suit.
The suit argues that members of the development team wrongly introduced the “nature, size and type of cracking” to the Ministry of Buildings of the City, the suit said.
Architects and engineers in New York are responsible for informing the buildings department of an “immediate dangerous circumstances” in properties where they work. The Department was not informed of such conditions at 432 Park Avenue, a spokesperson said.
The lawsuit also said that the disclosures used in information for potential buyers and submitted to the office of the attorney General in 2013 were revised.
Formulation that had said that the density of the concrete “water penetration” will prevent “to say that the concrete and the correct sealed windows” have been designed to prevent water penetration. “
- Advertisement -
