| NYguy |
May 27, 2025 8:32 PM |
https://therealdeal.com/new-york/202...house-lawsuit/
Zeckendorfs out billionaire as unhappy buyer of $80M penthouse
Developers shrug off suit by Orlando Bravo over potentially obscured views from trophy 520 Park unit
By Jake Indursky
May 27, 2025
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Orlando Bravo, founder of private equity firm Thoma Bravo, has seen some bad deals in his life.
His firm’s purchase of algorithmic rent-setting company RealPage came just before the firm faced a deluge of antitrust lawsuits, and he has sworn off cryptocurrency after investment in exchange FTX before the company’s fraud-induced flameout.
Now, Bravo is claiming another deal gone bad.
The investor, who holds the claim as the first Puerto Rican-born billionaire, was outed as the buyer, along with his wife, of the $79 million penthouse at 520 Park Avenue in court filings by the property’s developers, Arthur Zeckendorf and William Lie Zeckendorf.
Bravo was unidentified when he sued the developers in March over an impending neighboring skyscraper that he claimed was “all but certain to ruin the Penthouse’s unobstructed Central Park view, the unit’s defining feature.”
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The Zeckendorfs on Friday filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, excoriating Bravo’s claims “as completely without merit” in a memo endorsing the motion — but not before revealing the Bravos as the buyers for the first time.
In his complaint, Bravo claimed that the Zeckendorfs knew of “secret plans” for a view-obstructing skyscraper abutting 520 Park because of “their status as part of a small circle of New York City real estate insiders,” along with Extell Development’s Gary Barnett, the developer of the offending skyscraper.
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“This shameless suit, a blatant attempt to renegotiate an $80 million transaction, rests on rank speculation and disregards clear, written disclosures,” lawyers for the Zeckendorfs, Terrence and Darren Oved, said in a statement.
The Zeckendorfs claimed in the filing that “even accepting [the complaint’s] allegations as true, it must be dismissed as a matter of law,” citing New York’s Martin Act, which bars condo owners from suing sponsors over an allegedly fraudulent omission from a condo offering plan.
They also claim Bravo lacks sufficient evidence to pursue a claim of fraudulent omission, writing that the complaint does not include details as to “when, where, how, by whom, or to whom, the unidentified ‘secret plans’ were allegedly conveyed.”
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The Bravos are seeking to rescind the sale and recoup any other potential damages. But the Zeckendorfs claim that the case should be dismissed as “unripe” because nothing has risen yet to obstruct the penthouse views.
“Plaintiff alleges merely that developers might combine several lots adjoining the Building, and if they do, they might construct a skyscraper that might be tall enough to obstruct the Lot Line Windows on the 53rd and 54th floors,” the developers write. “Unless and until these potential events actually happen, Plaintiff’s claim is not a justiciable case or controversy.”
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