The City of Yonkers is demanding $700,000 from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a contractor who allegedly destroyed ball fields they were supposed to refurbish at Fay Park.
The city accused the Bronx college and Concrete Contracting Construction Inc. of botching a park restoration project, in a complaint filed Dec. 22 in Westchester Supreme Court.
Due to their negligence, the complaint states, Fay Park “continues to be in a state of disrepair and the ball fields were and continue to be effectively destroyed.”
The park project began as a collaboration that was meant to benefit the college and the city.
The city wanted to give residents a better park at lower costs. The Mount, as the college is sometimes called, needed more ball fields for its students, and Fay Park on the Yonkers – Riverdale border is a hundred yards from the college’s Peter Jay Sharp Athletic and Recreation Center.
In 2018, they made a deal to split the costs.
The college was responsible for phase 1: restoring the softball and baseball fields and installing drainage and irrigation systems.
Yonkers was responsible for phase 2: building or renovating dugouts, bull pens, fencing, scoreboards, a batting cage, the concession stand, bathrooms and storage areas.
The city budgeted $560,000 for its part of the project. The college hired Concrete Contracting Construction Inc., a Greenburgh company operated by Filip Lala, in March 2019.
Phase 1 was to begin in June 2019. But six months later, according to the complaint, CCCI had abandoned the job.
The work that had been done was allegedly unfinished or defective. Ballfields were not properly graded, fencing was incomplete, the partially installed irrigation system didn’t work. The ballfields were left with overgrown vegetation and mounds of dirt. Construction equipment was left in the park.
The public could no longer use the park, the city claims. Sports leagues were left without playing fields. Residents on Riverdale Avenue complained of flooding.
Last year, Yonkers decided it could wait no longer and it hired a contractor to finish the job for $700,000, according to the complaint. An agreement was drafted whereby the college would pay $250,000 and the city would cover the rest of the costs.
But this past Fall, the college allegedly determined that it was not willing to contribute to the project.
Yonkers accused CCCI and the College of Mount St. Vincent of breach of contract, negligence, trespass (for using Fay Park “in such a manner as to cause destruction”) and causing a nuisance.
The college declined to offer its side of the story, and CCCI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yonkers is represented by corporate counsel Matthew I. Gallagher.
