Ossining mirror company demands return of rent payments

A tenant in The Wire Mill Industrial Park in Ossining claims that the landlord concealed environmental contamination so as to fraudulently lease the property.

Mirage Mirror & Glass Inc. is demanding that The Wire Mill LLC and operator Robert Fedigan cancel the lease and return nearly seven years of rent payments.

Fedigan “deliberately concealed” contamination, according to the complaint filed on Oct. 23 in Westchester Supreme Court, “for the purpose of deceiving and defrauding” Mirage Mirror & Glass.

Fedigan did not reply to a message, asking for his side of the story, that was emailed to his Mini Storage Center across the street from Mirage Mirror.

The Hudson Wire Company began making copper wire products on the Water Street property in 1909, according to the complaint, and it sold the 3.7-acre site to Fedigan in 1997.

In 2010, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation accepted the site for its Brownfield Cleanup Program.

Contaminants were detected in the soil, groundwater and air. Soil was removed. Equipment was installed to reduce soil vapors from leaking into the building. The building’s floor and asphalt parking lot had to be kept free of cracks to block contaminated vapors. The indoor air had to be tested yearly.

The Wire Mill had to file an environmental easement at the county courthouse. The property was cleaned up, the easement says, but the groundwater may not be used, the air still had to be monitored, and the floor and parking lot had to remain sealed.

Anyone leasing space from The Wire Mill had to be given a copy of the site management plan, according to the complaint, and incorporate the terms of the environmental easement into the leases.

John Count, the president of Mirage Mirror & Glass, leased one of the buildings for five years, in 2018, and renewed for another five years, in 2023. The 7,300-square foot building includes offices and an open area where glass is fabricated. About 10 people work there.

Count claims that Fedigan did not tell him about any contamination when they negotiated the leases. When Count discovered the problems and confronted Fedigan this past January, he claims,  Fedigan said he was not entitled to information about contamination.

Then an environmental consultant hired by The Wire Mill tested the indoor air and found elevated levels, according to the complaint, but Fedigan refused to share the results.

A consultant hired by Mirage Mirror allegedly found extensive cracks in the building floor that allowed soil vapors to contaminate the building, the complaint states. And the state Department of Environmental Conservation directed The Wire Mill to give Mirage Mirror the air test results and to seal the cracks.

Mirage Mirror accuses Fedigan and The Wire Mill of fraudulently concealing the contamination and breaching the leases by failing to reveal the facts.

Mirage Mirror is represented by White Plains attorneys Nicholas M. Ward-Willis and Andrew P. Tureaud, of Keane & Beane P.C.