The Deal

The failed real estate deal the newspapers are focusing on this morning involve two developers who have both been linked to sketchy behavior in the past, increasing the possibility that something untoward happened in Greenpoint on Tuesday:

Properties controlled by both Joshua Guttman, who owns the Greenpoint site, and Baruch Singer, who was trying to buy it, have been investigated by the city for suspicious events in the past.

Fire officials have suggested the Brooklyn blaze was intentionally set due to the speed in which it engulfed the warehouse buildings that are slated for demolition.

Mr. Singer, a landlord turned developer, is suing Mr. Guttman to resurrect an 8-month-old contract for $424 million to buy the property and develop it into a luxury condominium complex.

According to court documents, Messrs. Singer and Guttman did not close on the deal by the January deadline because Mr. Singer came up short on financing.

Mr. Guttman then voided the deal, and seized Mr. Singer’s $42 million deposit.

. . .

Mr. Singer, the prospective buyer, has consistently been cited by tenant groups as one of the worst landlords in the city. In 1995, the district attorney of New York County, Robert Morgenthau, conducted an investigation of a six-story Harlem building controlled by Mr. Singer that collapsed and killed three people. Mr. Morgenthau did not file criminal charges against Mr. Singer because the collapse was not “reasonably foreseeable,” according to a press release his office issued at the time. Mr. Singer’s buildings have reportedly racked up more than 4,000 violations with the city’s department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Phone messages left yesterday at the offices of Baruch Singer and his lawyer, Sean O’Donnell, were not returned.

The city’s fire probe will mark the second time that a building owned by Mr. Guttman will be investigated for arson.

Mr. Guttman, who real estate industry sources say is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, owned a loft building in DUMBO that burned down in 2004, prompting an investigation by the city. Mr. Guttman was never charged, but some suspected that the landlord had started a fire to allow him to convert the building into luxury units.