A challenging Tribeca redevelopment project seems to have just gotten tougher for developer and brokerage owner Kent Swig.
A lender has sued to foreclose on a stack of loans tied to a 6-story prewar site on Duane Street near West Broadway that has been under construction for years.
Axos Financial claims Swig defaulted in November on three mortgages backed by the project and now owes the bank a total of about $24 million, according to a filing made Friday in the federal court of the Southern District of New York.
Swig, who once controlled office towers across the Financial District through his firm Swig Equities and who is currently an owner of Brown Harris Stevens parent company Terra Holdings, has not yet filed a legal response. And a phone message left at Swig Equities’ Midtown office was not returned by press time.
The current case adds to a legal thicket around the building, which Swig purchased for $19 million in 2017 after a condo conversion planned for the 33-foot-wide site fell apart.
Among the court battles that have played out so far at the property is a fight that’s been going on for six years and counting between Swig and longtime rent-stabilized husband-and-wife tenants Timothy and Akiko Tabor, who initially sued Swig in 2018 over his alleged failure to maintain air conditioning, heat and buzzer service in their fourth-floor unit as a renovation unfolded.
In 2021 the Tabors won a $198,000 judgment against Swig and his other investors in the project. But Swig, who appealed the decision, does not appear to have paid the money as the two sides continue squabbling over other issues, including the amount of rent that the Tabors shelled out to relocate to a nearby address on Park Place, court filings show.
A separate but related suit lobbed in 2022 at Swig by the Tabors accused him of contempt of court for apparently skipping a planned deposition as well as concealing key bank documents. But in January 2024 Justice Leslie Stroth found that Swig had indeed been forthcoming with financing information and dismissed the case.
Big things were once planned for the narrow building, whose retail space has been home to the Hawaiian-themed surfboard store and coffee shop Bikini Bar, which has been closed for years even though its window continues to display colorful gear. Its website promises an “endless summer 2025” reopening, though a phone message left at the shop went unreturned.
The building’s previous owner, Evan Seiden, once sought to convert the upstairs floors into four luxury condos, with one being set aside for the Tabors, according to a 2015 offering plan on file with the state. Seiden anticipated a $47 million haul from condo sales there, the plan shows.
But for reasons that are unclear, Seiden scrapped the conversion two years later and unloaded the building to Swig, who does not seem to be angling for a similar makeover, though city Department of Buildings permits indicate that renovation work has been taking place there on and off for years. The work at the site, which sits in a protected historic district, has so far involved upgrades to mechanical systems and elevators, permits show.
The three loans entangled in the current dispute, first reported by PincusCo, date to 2018. They were supposed to mature in 2020, filings show, but a series of forbearance agreements that Swig struck with his lender and Covid-related delays pushed the deadlines back to 2024.
Swig, who was married to Elizabeth Macklowe, a daughter of developer Harry Macklowe of supertall condo 432 Park Ave. fame, once commanded a similarly high-profile perch in New York real estate circles.
Two decades ago, Swig Equities owned a long list of major sites, most of them in Lower Manhattan, such as 5 Hanover Square, 110 William St. and 80 Broad St. But plans to convert some of its portfolio into apartment towers hit snags in the Great Recession after Swig defaulted on mortgages backed by the properties, and other developers, including Savanna, swooped in and snapped up the sites for their own.
Michael Driscoll, a lawyer with the firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton representing Axos in the action, did not return a phone message for comment.
