Trustee Approves $96M Sale of Bankrupt Williamsburg Lodge
From left: Quadrum Development’s Oleg Pavlov, Toby Moskovits, and Heritage Fairness Partners’ Michael Lichtenstein with the 96 Wythe Ave (Williamsburg Lodge, Getty)
Following three decades of drama, the bankrupt Williamsburg Lodge could soon start out a new chapter.
The fashionable 147-important residence developed by Toby Moskovits and Michael Lichtenstein at 96 Wythe Avenue is established to be bought to London-primarily based hospitality organization Quadrum International for $96 million, according to a court docket submitting.
The news comes six months soon after Moskovits and Lichtenstein ended up stripped of regulate of the hotel by a federal bankruptcy judge, who appointed an unbiased trustee to oversee the individual bankruptcy procedure immediately after ruling that the debtors couldn’t be trustworthy “to deal like fiduciaries.”
The trustee selected Quadrum as the customer right after appointing A&G True Estate and Eastdil Secured to market the house in August.
A individual bankruptcy decide however requirements to approve the sale and a listening to is established for up coming week. Quadrum, nevertheless, is in the direct placement to acquire the residence.
Facing a foreclosure try by loan provider Profit Street Companions, Moskovits and Lichtenstein brought the lodge to Decide Robert Drain’s White Plains personal bankruptcy court docket in 2021.
Advantage Street’s lawyers argued that Moskovits’ team siphoned money out of the resort. Moskovits and Lichtenstein denied the allegations and claimed their lenders, which also provided Fortress financial commitment Team, which was also hoping to foreclose, were being predatory.
“I guess Fortress and Profit Street are in a competitors on who is the major asshole financial institution in New York Town,” Lichtenstein claimed in a deposition very last calendar year.
The scenario turned uglier when an impartial examiner was appointed to seem into the debtor entity’s transactions.
Soon after analyzing 50 lender accounts, conducting 11 interviews and reviewing about 10,000 internet pages of files, the examiner report was unveiled past calendar year.
“The investigation uncovered evidence of a complex scheme to divert and siphon significant quantities of revenue from the debtor,” the report stated, detailing $12.5 million in funds distributed to entities owned immediately or indirectly by Moskovits and Lichtenstein and the debtor entity’s lack of tax returns for at minimum a few yrs prior to the individual bankruptcy submitting, among the other factors.
Lichtenstein fought again by assailing the examiner, alleging that he “misused his position” and “instead acted as a passionate advocate for the Advantage Street Partners’ statements and positions.”
Decide Drain ultimately dominated in opposition to Lichtenstein and Moskovits, main to the appointment of the trustee to manage the lodge final summer time.
The file “shows a series of severe and I consider willful failure to disclose and appropriation of property that are — that must not have been carried out by the fiduciary” claimed Drain at a hearing. “At instances, some of people steps also look to me to increase to the stage of fraud.”
The appointment of the trustee did not mark an stop to the authorized battles. Lichtenstein and Moskovits’ lawyer claim the hotel’s trademark together with its slogan, “Sleep With a Local,” are owned by Moskovits. The trustee has refuted these claims, in essence contacting them nonsense.
Quadrum Global, led by Oleg Pavlov, has in excess of $1 billion in belongings underneath management, in accordance to its internet site. It also owns the Arlo Midtown, Arlo NoMad and Arlo Soho boutique motels in Manhattan and the Nautilus by Arlo in Miami Seaside.