Prominent Big Apple developer Michael Shvo was slapped with a lawsuit by a disgruntled couple who plunked down $6.1 million for a pad at the Mandarin Oriental Fifth Avenue, claiming the luxury building is riddled with problems — including an “algae-infested” rooftop pool.
John Goodman and his wife, Diane Johnson, alleged that the building developed by Shvo at 685 Fifth Ave. is “plagued by construction defects, unfinished amenities, a pervasive sense of neglect, and compromised services that in no way live up to Mandarin Oriental five-star standards and the Defendants’ hype,” according to complaint filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan on Monday.
The couple lodged a separate lawsuit against Shvo late last year after paying a record sum for their one-bedroom apartment, demanding that he make fixes to their unfinished unit, as The Post reported.
The new complaint, which also names the Mandarin Oriental Group and Shvo’s foreign investors, now seeks to claw back their money so they can escape the money pit.
The couple, which goes by the Goodmans, said their 18th-floor unit “is now effectively worthless. Their dreams have been shattered, leaving them with a substantial financial loss and a profound sense of betrayal,” according to the lawsuit.
The buzzy building, where another buyer paid a record $3.88 million cash last December for a tiny studio, is a fraudulent disaster, the complaint added.
The lawsuit claims that the “rooftop oasis transformed into a wasteland of dead foliage and an algae-infested pool that remained open despite posing a health risk to residents.”
The Goodmans also claimed that the building is a “virtual ghost town,” and alleged that only 16 out of 64 units have sold after three years.
It states: “Shvo, having extracted his profits, has effectively abandoned the Building, leaving behind a financial and reputational wreck. The Sponsor, controlled by Shvo, is facing imminent default” and that they are “trapped in a desolate environment.”
It’s so bad that the promised Michelin-starred Daniel Boulud private restaurant now closes at 5 pm every day, “eliminating the possibility of enjoying a core incentive amenity and advertised dining experience.”
The complaint accuses Shvo of orchestrating a “brazen scheme … to defraud buyers.”
The allegations echo complaints made against Shvo by the owners of the posh member-only Core Club, which filed a $600 million lawsuit against the developer earlier this month.
According to the Goodmans’ lawsuit, Shvo fed them a “seductive illusion of luxury and exclusivity.”
But instead of living the dream, they are in a living nightmare.
Residents who pay millions of dollars walk by dead plants and worse.
“The grand entrance, envisioned as a welcoming gateway, remains an unfinished façade (an unsightly half-unpainted temporary plywood canopy that should have been bronze), a jarring visual reminder of the project’s stalled progress and lack of care,” the complaint said.
Shvo’s lawyer brushed back the latest allegations.
“This is a disgruntled buyer who has decided to declare war … and spending his days searching for dead flowers,” attorney Morris Missry of the firm Wachtel, Missry LLP, told The Post.
.The Goodmans’ December lawsuit alleged their prized home was filled with warped millwork, rippled wallpaper, missing doors, no heat in the radiant heated floors, wrongly sized pieces of furniture, and missing custom turnkey pieces that were promised — like tablemats.
Shvo’s lawyer previously told The Post that the lawsuit was “a shameless attempt to use the courts and the press to extort money.”
At the same time, Page Six has reported that Shvo uses the building as “his own personal fiefdom with flagrant disregard, hosting disruptive events, monopolizing common areas, accommodating guests in the turnkey residences and violating the building’s rules with impunity.”
Shvo is also being sued by former business partner Serdar Bilgili for fraud and unjust enrichment in an unrelated case at the Crown Building, 730 Fifth Avenue.
In 2018, Shvo pled guilty to tax evasion and paid $3.5 million in back taxes and fines.
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