NYC's super skinny skyscraper is fat with cost overruns, prompting a lawsuit
The best things in life are free, but construction cranes still cost money, which has prompted an investor to sue the developers behind SHoP's 111 West 57th Street for failing to budget appropriately for the cost of cranes (among other things) for the super skinny tower, which is already way over budget and only approximately 25% assembled.1
The lawsuit, filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court, alleges that the project is already $50 million over budget when it hasn’t even reached 20-stories yet. Eventually the building is proposed to rise to 1,421 feet with 82 stories.
This investor, AmBase, has specifically blamed JDS’s Michael Stern, and Property Markets Group’s Kevin Maloney for the cost overruns, according to the Post. The increase in cost is allegedly due to the developers not accounting for the cost of construction cranes.
This seems to be the second lawsuit lobbed by AmBase against the developers. They sued JDS and Property Markets Group last year too, according to The Real Deal, alleging that the developers were trying “to dilute its stake” in the project. Previously TRD had also reported that AmBase paid $56 million towards a 59 percent stake in the project in 2015, but was unable to meet subsequent capital contributions.
