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New York City Multifamily Developer Evicted From Atlantic Yards

Troubled developer Shaya Boymelgreen may have lost LibertyPointe Bank to a federal takeover due to bad real estate loans, but at least he had his office, at 752 Pacific Street. Until this week.

Owner Henry Weinstein evicted Boymelgreen’s employees from their six-story commercial building, now part of the Atlantic Yards development site, for two of Boymelgreen’s sins: First, he illegally sold his lease to developer Forest City Ratner. Second, well, he just didn’t get around to paying his rent to Weinstein.

Weinstein bemoaned his Pyrrhic victory: “Although I was able to right a terrible wrong, it’s happening too late to save my property from eminent domain.” State officials said the eviction was improper, though they had no plans to intervene.

Empire State Development Corp. spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell said the state took title to the building on March 1 and “Weinstein no longer had any right to [evict tenants] because he no longer owns the building.”

Weinstein showed up with sheriff’s deputies…and had a locksmith use a crowbar to break open the door. “They locked all the doors,” he said. “We had to physically break into the building.”

About 20 Boymelgreen employees and subtenants carried out computers and boxes of supplies before Weinstein padlocked the building.

Benjamin Herbst, whose son did security work for Boymelgreen and ran his own security business out of the building, blasted Weinstein and vowed to go to court Friday to reverse the eviction.

“He’s an irrational person,” he said. “It’s just spite and vindictiveness. … [The eminent domain battle] is over with. The Supreme Court has spoken, the Court of Appeals has spoken, it’s done. Sometimes you’ve just got to face defeat like an adult, which he’s not doing.”

No indication that Forest City Ratner will provide a new home to Boymelgreen or Herbst.

Editor’s Note: If a security company owner loses his office, does that make him insecure?

Hat Tip: NY Daily News

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