After big fire, Chase backs out

Chase bank has pulled out of deal to open a branch in a converted DUMBO
industrial building owned by the same developer whose Greenpoint warehouse
burnt down last week in a suspicious fire.

Negotiations to open a branch at 68 Jay St. ended abruptly on Friday —
just hours after the Greenpoint blaze had been linked to four other deliberately
set fires on properties owned by the landlord, Joshua Guttman.

Chase declined to comment on how the ongoing investigation of the arson-afflicted
landlord affected the bank’s decision — but the bank’s
broker admitted it was a factor.

“It’s never any one thing [that ends lease negotiations],”
said broker Faith Hope Consolo. “Let’s just say [other spaces]
are more desirable right now.”

In DUMBO, Guttman owns at least a half-dozen large warehouse properties,
which he rented as residences in the 1980s and ’90s. Though such
conversions were illegal, they did play a large role in transforming the
once-gritty neighborhood into its current and future identity as a post-industrial
Babylon.

“He rented us really great lofts and let us stay until we had built
a really great community,” said a former resident of 247 Water St.,
a DUMBO loft building. “Then, he evicted us two days before Christmas
[2004].”

A suspicious blaze later gutted that building. The fire’s cause was
never officially determined, but Guttman’s insurer, Alea North America,
refused to pay for damages on the grounds that Guttman’s claim was
fraudulent.

The building remains vacant, its windows covered with unsightly plywood.

Nearby, at 50 Bridge St., tenants are suing Guttman for ignoring building
and safety codes when he converted the 19th-century factory into luxury
condos.

“We thought we were getting a good price on our apartment, but the
problems were structural,” said Darren Karp, a condo owner. “To
fix the problems, you’d have to tear down the condos and reconstruct
them again.”

Karp was not surprised to hear that Chase had pulled out of the 68 Jay
St. deal days after the suspicious fire in Greenpoint.

“The guy is a complete criminal. No bank should rent from him,”
he said.

Guttman and his lawyer declined repeated requests for comment..