Brooklyn, NY - Two Developers Are Set To Fight Over Blaze Site

Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY - With the blaze that destroyed much of a 14-acre site on the Brooklyn waterfront not yet fully extinguished, two developers are set to appear in court next week in their $424 million fight over the property.

Properties controlled by both Joshua Guttman, who owns the Greenpoint site, and Baruch Singer, who was trying to buy it, have been investigated by the city for suspicious events in the past.
Fire officials have suggested the Brooklyn blaze was intentionally set due to the speed in which it engulfed the warehouse buildings that are slated for demolition.

Mr. Singer, a landlord turned developer, is suing Mr. Guttman to resurrect an 8-month-old contract for $424 million to buy the property and develop it into a luxury condominium complex.
According to court documents, Singer and Guttman did not close on the deal by the January deadline because Mr. Singer came up short on financing.
Mr. Guttman then voided the deal, and seized Mr. Singer's $42 million deposit.
In the lawsuit, Mr. Singer contends that Mr. Guttman is trying to wiggle out of an agreement to extend the closing date by six months. He is seeking to reopen the contract or receive a refund of his $42 million deposit.

Mr. Singer, the prospective buyer, has consistently been cited by tenant groups as one of the worst landlords in the city. In 1995, the district attorney of New York County, Robert Morgenthau, conducted an investigation of a six-story Harlem building controlled by Mr. Singer that collapsed and killed three people. Mr. Morgenthau did not file criminal charges against Mr. Singer. Mr. Singer's buildings have reportedly racked up more than 4,000 violations with the city's department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Mr. Guttman, who real estate industry sources say is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, owned a loft building in DUMBO that burned down in 2004, prompting an investigation by the city. Mr. Guttman was never charged.