A developer best known for fires has gotten himself into hot water.
Joshua Guttman, who owns the Greenpoint Market Terminal that burned down in a spectacular blaze earlier this year, has been slapped by a $36-million lawsuit from condo owners in one of his luxury DUMBO buildings.
The legal complaint slams the “horrendous conditions” in the converted 19th-century factory, including illegal wooden staircases, exposed wires, non-existent ventilation and flimsy drywall that could burn to ashes in less than an hour.
“[55 Bridge St.] shows a pattern of complete neglect,” said attorney Adam Leitman Bailey, who is representing the condo owners.
“If there was a fire and people are not awake or didn’t smell it, they aren’t getting out alive.”
Guttman made a name for himself — and not a good one — when he evicted tenants in an illegally converted DUMBO warehouse two days before Christmas in 2004.
The building was later gutted in a suspicious fire. A cause was never determined for the blaze, but last winter the story was revived when Guttman’s Greenpoint warehouses burned down in the largest fire seen in the city since the World Trade Center disaster in 2001.
