A wedding gown designer to A-listers like Olivia Munn and Halle Berry is in a heated court battle with a real estate honcho after a fire caused $2.5 million in damage to her Manhattan showroom.
Reem Acra’s West 35th Street studio, ​which houses 2,400 high-end couture dresses and bundles of $900-a-yard fabric, was covered in smoke and black soot from a two-alarm blaze at developer Joseph Chetrit’s neighboring building March 27.
The gowns, which start at around $3,500, and ​the ​luxe materials ​that go into them ​had to be cleaned and replaced, the suit says.
When Acra’s attorney Robert Stern asked Chetrit for access to his building at 245 W. 34th so his fire investigator could examine the scene, he was repeatedly ignored, according to court papers.
The couturier believes the fire started when workers from MJR Construction Services Corp. were using a torch to remove steel beams, ductwork and wiring. She says in court papers that the black soot flooded her third-floor suite through heating and air conditioning vents.
On March 31​,​ an employee from the construction firm briefly allowed the designer’s reps into the Garment District building to take photographs.
But they “did not have enough time to perform an analysis of the building’s wiring, and certainly not a joint inspection of the premises as necessary for litigation,” according to the suit.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling ordered Chetrit and his management company Cornell Realty to allow Acra’s lawyers and investigators into the building starting on July 7.
Jack Glanzberg, attorney for Cornell, said, “We’re trying to schedule access. It’s just a matter of coordinating the dates.”
Acra’s attorneys did not immediately comment.
Chetrit recently received a green light from the city for demolition work at 245 W. 34th St., which he plans to turn into a 17-story hotel and retail center.
He is also constructing what will be Brooklyn’s tallest building, a 775-foot tower on Flatbush Avenue Extension.
