Developers at Westchester”™s Ridge Hill are clashing in a state court over more than $1.6 million in payments that the owner of the mixed-use development in Yonkers claims to be owed by the company that built and owns a condominium tower in the 81-acre commercial “village” overlooking the Thruway.
Owners of The Monarch, a 162-unit, glass-sheathed building planned as the first of four luxury residences in a 500-unit, estimated $300 million condo complex on the western flank of Ridge Hill, were seeking a buyer for the underoccupied property this year, according to a source in the Westchester real estate industry. Newsday reported in February that 55 units ”“ about one-third of those marketed ”“ had been sold in the 13-story tower that opened in early 2012.
The Monarch”™s developer, Horizon at Ridge Hill L.LC., is the defendant in a complaint filed last summer in state Supreme Court by FC Yonkers Associates L.L.C., an entity of Ridge Hill”™s Brooklyn-based developer, Forest City Ratner Companies. Forest City claims the condo developer defaulted on contractual payments that total at least $1,606,955.
Attorneys for Forest City said the unpaid sums include $588,900 for infrastructure and site development work done by Ridge”™s Hill”™s owner at Horizon”™s nearly 7-acre condo site; an additional $500,000 due from Horizon under a 2007 land purchase agreement; $476,055 for sub-metered electricity used during construction of the Monarch, and at least $42,000 for common area expenses and maintenance charges related to Horizon”™s licensed use of rent-free space in Forest City”™s sole office building at Ridge Hill as a sales office and condo showroom.
The Ridge Hill landlord also asked the court to evict Horizon from the 10,500-square-foot space at 73 Market St., the new Yonkers office of Westmed Medical Group. Attorneys claimed Horizon continued to unlawfully occupy the space despite repeated notices from Forest City.
Horizon agreed to vacate the premises by March 31, according to court documents. The website of the Horizon Group, the parent company of the Yonkers condo developer, lists the sales office address as 701 Ridge Hill Blvd., the Monarch”™s location.
The sales office, though, apparently is not regularly staffed during business hours. Several calls there by the Business Journal were answered by a recorded operator”™s message.
Amid the bustle and publicity of serial store, cinema and restaurant openings at Ridge Hill that began in 2011, the rift between developers has widened out of public view.
In the most recent court filing in mid-March, an attorney for Forest City described Horizon”™s new claim that a $500,000 wire payment in 2010 was intended as a final purchase payment rather than as a delinquent installment on its site development debt as “gamesmanship” and an attempt to engage in “a shell game.”
The Monarch development is led by David Marom, a native of Israel and Long Island resident who in the 1980s founded the Horizon Group, a real estate development and investment company. Since 1992, Marom has partnered on his residential and commercial projects in the metropolitan area with two Israeli companies, Izaki Group Investment and Azorim Investment Development & Construction Ltd., a publicly traded company that reportedly sustained heavy financial losses in 2009 and 2010. The Israeli partners have stakes in Marom”™s Ridge Hill project.
The Horizon Group on its website now lists the Monarch address at Ridge Hill as its contact location. Marom could not be reached there for comment.
Last September, state Supreme Court Justice Alan D. Scheinkman ordered that a notice of pendency filed by Forest City Ratner on the Monarch property at Ridge Hill be canceled. The judge in his decision noted that Marom claimed his opponent filed the notice, which asserts Forest City”™s right to collect its debt if the property is sold or transferred, to gain leverage in the legal action. Marom, the judge said, claimed the filing with the county clerk”™s office “has made it difficult, if not impossible, for Horizon to close on the sale of its condominium units because title companies are reluctant to insure over a notice of pendency.”
Westchester County land records show that North Fork Bank, a division of Capital One N.A., holds $62.4 million in mortgages on Horizon”™s Ridge Hill property.
At Forest City Ratner”™s Brooklyn office, senior vice president Ashley Cotton said the company “cannot comment on an active lawsuit.”
