Four months after lenders seized Hans Futterman’s Harlem development site, the developer is now at risk of losing a property across the street.
Maverick Real Estate Partners is seeking to foreclose on five retail condominium units at 2280 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, a 12-story condo building in South Harlem. In December, the private equity fund took over a $10 million mortgage that New Jersey-based BCB Community Bank provided to Futterman’s RGS Holdings, according to documents filed in state Supreme Court on Thursday.
When reached by phone on Thursday, Futterman said that he had not yet received notice of the foreclosure but would review it with his attorney. He declined to comment further.
The property is across the street from 300 West 122nd Street, a development site known as Ladera that Ari Shalam’s RWN Real Estate Partners foreclosed on in September. The Real Deal reported at the time that RGS had failed to keep up with payments on a $36 million loan.
According to Thursday’s filing, Futterman’s other financial troubles triggered the default on the 2280 FDB loans. Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy — which Futterman’s firm did in November 2016 — qualifies as an “event of default” under the loan agreements, the complaint states.
Separately, Futterman has been in several disputes with Atul Bhatara, a minority partner in the 2280 LLC which owns the Harlem property. An arbitrator overseeing that conflict barred Futterman from controlling the LLC in July 2017, which represented an “adverse change in guarantor’s business/property,” according to Maverick’s complaint.
The arbitration award acknowledged intentional misconduct on Futterman’s part. In one lawsuit, Bhatara accused Futterman of transferring parking rights from 2280 FDB to his property across the street without reimbursing the project’s partners.
In bankruptcy court on Tuesday, Futterman filed a motion accusing Bhatara — operating as USHA SoHa Terrace LLC — of launching “a misguided campaign to seize more than its share of a 14 percent minority investment” in the condo project.