At 809 Broadway, where workers are adding a 10-story addition to the former Blatt Billiards building, a "concrete blowout" during construction on March 11 has caused "extensive damage" to the adjacent property where residents have been forced from their homes, according to city records.
According to the DOB, there are four Stop Work Order complaints for 809 Broadway, including one for "work does not conform to approved construction documents."
Next door, at this building between East 11th Street and East 12th Street, a a Partial Vacate Order remains in effect. Residents have not been allowed back into the building since the construction accident. (City documents show that contractors were admitted inside to remove personal effects for the tenants.) In addition, the 7-Eleven on the ground floor remains closed.
Property records show that Ben Shaoul's Magnum Real Estate is the owner of the damaged 813 Broadway, where the rentals feature four and five bedrooms that range in price from $7,000 to $10,000 a month, via Streeteasy listings.
A neighbor says that residents at 813 won't likely be able to return for at least two more weeks.
809 Broadway was the longtime home until 2013 to Blatt Billiards, a pool table manufacturer that had owned and occupied the building since 1972. Blatt principals Ronald Blatt and Bruce Roeder reportedly sold the building to a buyer who was identified only as 809 Broadway Holding LLC.
The Commercial Observer noted last July that 809 Broadway Holding LLC "is a partnership of three private investors led by its principal Ariel Rom." New York-based IDM Capital is the project's development manager, per the Observer.
There are approved permits on file to boost the height of the 55-foot building to 199 feet, adding 10 stories to the existing five-story structure. In total, the building will house 10 luxury condos, including one duplex and one triplex penthouse on the top floors.
Here are renderings via ODA-Architecture...
The construction incident at 809 Broadway sounds similar to what occurred in 2012 at 133 Third Ave., where workers accidentally sent wet concrete oozing through a wall and into an the NYU dorm next door on East 14th Street. The owner of the building that NYU leases the dorm from subsequently sued to halt the project. The 16-story residential building has remained dormant since the accident. Recently approved amendments to work permits suggest that constructions will resume again here.
Thank you to EVG reader Mitchell Schneider for the tip and photos
