Ex-partners’ feud stalls $140M development in Port Chester

A proposed retail and apartment complex slated for downtown Port Chester is mired in a legal dispute between a tri-state area developer and a West Harrison contractor.

Contractor Jean Sinis claims in Westchester Supreme Court that Majic Development’s Michael Caridi broke an agreement signed to develop the project jointly, according to Westfair Online. Caridi said he terminated the partnership because Sinis violated their deal and that Sinis’ complaint includes “readily verifiable falsehoods.”

The project in question is a 12-story project planned a block from the Port Chester train station at 18-20 South Main Street and 21, 25 East Broadway. It would be called the Complex at Sinis Towers.

Majic presented the project to the Port Chester planning commission last year. Plans call for 110 apartments, a 120-room hotel and 41,000 square feet of retail space.

Caridi and Sinis signed an agreement in 2016 to develop the project together. Sinis was to acquire properties to assemble the development site. For his part, Caridi would raise money from outside investors and guide the project through the local approvals process.

Sinis claims that he contributed properties to the joint venture, but Caridi said that isn’t true, because documents for the transfer of the properties “do not exist and no transfer happened.”

Sinis also claims that Caridi breached their agreement by acquiring properties on his own and therefore acting in his own interest and not their joint interest, according to Westfair Online.

Either way, the partnership was brief. In December 2016, Caridi in a letter to Sinis accused him of breaching their agreement several times.

He claimed Sinis failed to disclose a foreclosure case against one of the properties needed for the project and also misrepresented his ownership of other properties.

“Our partnership is now terminated,” Caridi wrote in the letter, “and any of our agreements … are null and void.”

The village of Port Chester has been pushing for new development in its downtown. At least two other large development projects are underway there.

[Westfair Online] — Dennis Lynch