Stalled Sag Harbor condo project owes more than $1.7 million to contractors

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Local contractors and suppliers have filed more than $1.7 million in work liens against the dormant condominium project known as 21 West Water Street in Sag Harbor.

According to records on file in the Suffolk County clerk’s office, a dozen contractors have filed liens in the last several months against the future sale of the property for unpaid work or materials. At least two of the individual liens are for upwards of half a million dollars.

The project, a three-story, 20-unit condominium building, has been dormant for more than a week after the village building department discovered that the construction permits on the project had expired in December 2008. The project’s construction manager said this week he expects work to be underway again soon, once the project’s architect and developers have completed the re-application process.

“We’re hoping to be back to work shortly,” said Mark D’Andrea, whose company, Jo-Ton-Newark Corp. of Manhattan, is overseeing the now nearly two-year-old construction project.

Mr. D’Andrea said that having large mechanics liens against a project of that size are not wholly uncommon, particularly considering that a stop work order is in effect until the building permits are renewed.

“Whenever the permit expires and it’s not immediately renewed, you will have contractors looking to secure their interests,” Mr. D’Andrea said. “On a building that is 90-percent complete, to have that small [a number] of liens is not an issue. The building is worth 15 times that much—$1.7 million wouldn’t even pay for the landscaping on this property.”

Mr. D’Andrea denied that any of the liens were filed as a result of contract disputes or non-payment of overdue invoices.

Contractors can file liens for 
unpaid labor, services or materials already supplied but not yet compensated for, giving them the right to 
recoup the money they are owed if 
the property is ever sold.

Among the largest of the liens filed against the property is a $630,274 claim from B&G Electrical Contractors of North Amityville, approximately half of the $1.2 million contract for the electrical work on the building. Inter-County Mechanical Corp. a Bohemia heating and air conditioning company has also filed a lien for $510,241. All Systems Maintenance Inc. has filed a lien for $247,794. Other liens filed with the county included one by Southampton Brick and Tile for $94,000, $102,359 by Richmond County Stucco and Stone Contractors of Staten Island; and several other smaller liens ranging from $25,000 to $84,000.

Mr. D’Andrea said that while the building permit technically expired 11 months ago, two three-month extensions should have been in place until summer. Village officials said last week that they were going to look into how the permit on the property had been allowed to expire and go unrenewed for so long before work on the project was stopped.

The 21 West Water Street building is owned by East End Development, a limited liability company whose principals also owned East End Ventures, the company that has proposed a slightly smaller condo project on the waterfront at the foot of the Haerter Memorial Bridge. That project was killed by amendments to the village’s zoning code adopted last spring that drastically reduced the potential development on the property and prompted two lawsuits against the village by the developers. The suits allege that the code was improperly adopted and that village officials personally conspired to derail the One Ferry Road project.

Unlike the One Ferry Road proposal, the project at 21 West Water Street was roundly supported by village residents and elected officials when it was proposed three years ago because it would mean the end of a problematic restaurant and nightclub that had occupied the property, on the edge of a residential area.