Office Tenants Plagued on Broad St.

By Carl Glassman
POSTED MARCH 2, 2007

Since last summer, work has been underway on a luxurious new apartment and spa complex at 40 Broad Street called the Setai, New York. The 25-story office building, a few doors down from the New York Stock Exchange, is being converted into a 30-story condominium apartment building above the seventh floor.

It will be, according to the Setai, New York’s Web site, a “mantra of serenity and calm.” But for those who work in the eight remaining offices in the building—and have endured months of construction around them—life has been hardly calm, and anything but serene. “It’s been a nightmare,” said Russel Mangold, an account manager for Ikon Copy Center, located two floors below the construction. “You pick your livelihood over your life,” said another tenant, who asked not to be identified.

From earsplitting noise to falling debris, some tenants said they have reached the limit of tolerance, but are trapped for the months that remain on their leases.

On Feb. 28, one of the tenants, George Brunelle, a securities lawyer, filed suit against the developer, Zamir Equities, in an effort to break free of his lease, and the building.

His suit alleges a litany of dangerous incidents and months of fruitless pleas to the developer to halt the disruptions to his business.“Trying to talk to them was like shouting down a well,” said Brunelle, who pays $22,000 a month for his office suite.

On Feb. 9 fumes wafted throughout the building and the Fire Department responded. Lisa Byrd, a trust associate for Wachovia Bank, complained of difficulty breathing and was taken to New York Downtown Hospital, where she was treated and released. Her co-worker, Fatima Blowe, who is asthmatic, received oxygen at the scene.

The building was temporarily evacuated and many of the workers went home, complaining of headaches and nausea. Brunelle said the “toxic” odor resulted from a mixture of gasoline and solvents. Zamir’s in-house lawyer, Noah Bilenker, said the contractor told him the smell came from a “non-toxic” weatherproofing material. He noted that the Fire Department, called to the scene, allowed tenants to re-enter the building. “It was harmless,” he said. Fatima Blowe saw it differently. “It’s a frightening situation when you have asthma and you can’t breathe,” she said, adding that she questioned whether she could stay on the job until August, when her company is scheduled to move. A spokeswoman for the city’s Dept. of Environmental Protection said inspectors were called to the building twice last month, and did not find cause for violations.

Over the course of construction, the Department of Buildings has issued numerous violations to Zamir Equities, which is headed by Joshua Zamir, 28. Among them, inspectors noted an unsafe elevator, no safety manager on site, and inadequate provisions for dust control during demolition.

On Feb. 21, the Buildings Department stopped work on the project because inspectors found the sidewalk shed to be oversized and unsafe. Two stop-work orders, later lifted, were issued last year.

The Buildings Department was called to 40 Broad Street last June when a brick fell from the roof to the street. They returned two months later, after a 120 square foot concrete slab fell, shaking the building and sending books tumbling off shelves. A pedestrian was struck by a ricocheting piece concrete.

“I’ve never been in an earthquake, but for those few seconds it must have been what an earthquake feels like,” said Timothy Kebbe, a lawyer in Brunelle’s office. “Everything shook.”

Kebbe recalled another incident, when a heavy piece of rebar crashed onto the terrace outside his office window.

“If it had ricocheted and hit a window, I can’t imagine. The glass would have shattered and someone could have been badly hurt.”

The developer is removing a 24-foot-deep section of the building above the seventh floor and adding five floors to the top of the building. The noise and vibrations, as workers drill and hack through concrete slab, can rattle offices and torture eardrums.

“The building shakes and shimmers,” said an office worker in the building who did not want her name used. “People are terrified.”

Brunelle, whose office was moved downstairs to the sixth floor, said the drilling and jackhammering in the building was so loud that it halted phone conversation and meetings, delayed scheduled depositions and, on at least four occasions, forced him to close the office and send staff home.

“People were just sitting at their desks holding their ears,” he said. “I couldn’t allow them to stay here.”

Brunelle provided his employees with heavy-duty earp protection. As for himself, he said he sought help from a doctor for ringing in his ears that lasted days.

Bilenker, the developer’s lawyer, said Zamir lately received permission from the city to work around the clock, so the most disruptive construction could take place after hours. And he said they have changed to a slower, quieter method of breaking through walls. Bilenker expressed confidence in Newmark Construction Services, the company doing the conversion work and a veteran of several residential projects in the Financial District.

“Newmark has a significant amount of experience,” said Bilenker. “They know what they’re doing.”

A call to Newmark for comment was not returned.

Several tenants at 40 Broad Street said the developer, who is a partner in 44 Wall Street among other office buildings, should have moved them to another building, or let them out of their leases.

Claiming that Zamir Equities is “meeting with the tenants and doing what we can to make them comfortable,” Bilenker rejects both options. “We have the right to do renovations,” he said.

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