Jamie LeFrak, heir to The LeFrak Organization, the New York real-estate development giant, has learned a tough lesson in how to keep tenants off his back: Don’t screw with the view.
A New Jersey jury awarded a group of 16 angry tenants of a LeFrak luxury condo building in Jersey City close to $4 million after determining that the 37-year-old real estate developer and his firm falsely promised them “breathtaking” and “panoramic” views of Manhattan.
The miffed tenants, who plunked down as much as $760,000 for waterfront apartments in the Shore Club condominium, said they purchased the units because they wanted to overlook the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline. Promotional materials for the apartments depicted “unobstructed panoramic” views, Keith Biebelberg, a lawyer for the group argued.
But soon after moving in around 2007, the tenants learned that LeFrak was building another high-rise even closer to the water that also promised “magnificent views of Manhattan’s skyline.”
The second building, known as AquaBlu, was depicted on the promotional materials as a 12 story building, but it grew to be a whopping 32-stories tall.
One married couple living in the Shore Club condo even shelled out an extra $20,000 for an apartment on the 19th floor specifically to ensure unblocked views, a court filing by plaintiff’s attorney Michael Smith shows.
Neither LeFrak, whose legendary grandfather, Sam, built Lefrak City in Queens, nor his lawyer returned a call for comment. In court papers, LeFrak’s legal eagle, Dean Graver, argued that the artist’s renderings were “shown for illustrative and artistic purposes only” and should not have been “construed as factual representations.”
The jury disagreed and on Monday awarded each tenant 20 percent of what they paid for their units, a total of $1.25 million — an amount that could be trebled under New Jersey laws governing consumer fraud.