Everything and the office sink: Adjmi, Andreoli accused of stiffing landlord on $31K in rent

Architects can spend hours obsessing over fixtures in an office space. But a Brooklyn landlord claims two architects removed the sink and other fixtures from her building and stiffed her on more than $30,000 in rent.

Loeffler Properties, a Maryland-based company headed by Vera Loeffler, is suing Morris Adjmi and Aldo Andreoli for allegedly failing to pay $31,249.98 in rent for three months at 70 North 8th Street. The two also failed to pay $7,193 for unpaid real estate taxes and water charges and caused at least $25,000 in damages to the office when they removed the sink and other fixtures in the space, according to a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court on Friday. The complaint alleges that the two renovated the office without permission and didn’t repair damage caused by the changes.

Adjmi said he hasn’t worked with Andreoli for more than three years and was not party to the lease when it was renewed in 2015. The lawsuit alleges that Adjmi guaranteed the initial 2012 lease, as well as any renewals or changes, and is therefore on the hook for the unpaid rent from September to November 2017.

“I pay my bills, and I certainly wouldn’t guarantee anyone’s lease that I’m not associated with,” Adjmi said when reached on Friday.

Andreoli said that he paid $350,000 to renovate the office, which started out as a garage and was transformed into a “state of the art designer office.” He said that when he left, he took some specialty fixtures with him that he’d installed in the first place.

A representative for the landlord couldn’t immediately be reached Friday night.

Andreoli and Adjmi worked together on the residential conversion of the New York Dock Building at 160 Imlay in Red Hook and the 18-unit condo building at 11 North Moore in Tribeca. For a brief period of time, they operated under the name Adjmi & Andreoli, though Adjmi formed his own eponymous firm in 1997.