- Unit owners at 432 Park Avenue, a luxury tower in New York City, have now sued the developers twice.
- A 2021 complaint said the building was "riddled" with "construction and design defects."
- The owners now say in a new complaint that the developers committed "massive fraud."
432 Park Avenue, the narrow 1,396-foot-tall residential skyscraper on New York City's Billionaires' Row, was advertised as an architectural marvel when tenants first moved in nearly a decade ago.
Now those tenants say the luxury tower is beset by cracks, leaks, elevator malfunctions, and relentless noise.
Unit owners have filed two separate complaints against the building's developers. One, filed in 2021, says the building is plagued with structural issues and accuses the developers of not addressing them. The other, filed last month, accuses the developers of "massive fraud."
Renting a unit at 432 Park Avenue can cost $1 million a year. On Zillow, a two-bedroom unit is listed for sale for over $10 million, while a four-bedroom unit is listed for sale for $35 million.
According to StreetEasy, a New York City listings site owned by Zillow, owners of 432 Park's 104 condos have access to 30,000 square feet of amenities, including a residents-only restaurant, room service, a pool, a library with a wood-burning fireplace, a billiards room, a board room, and a screening room.
When it opened in 2015, 432 Park was the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere at 96 stories. Another Billionaires' Row building, Central Park Tower, eclipsed it in 2019.
A board representing individual and commercial unit owners at 432 Park listed CIM Group, Macklowe Properties, and the company they formed to build the condominium in the 2021 lawsuit.
"What was promised as one of the finest condominiums in the City was instead delivered riddled with over 1,500 identified construction and design defects to the common elements of the Building alone (leaving aside the numerous defects within individual units)," tenants said in the 2021 complaint.
They said the developers "refused to accept responsibility for the vast majority of its errors" and didn't properly address the defects.
The building's developers defended themselves in a 2021 court filing: "432 Park had such issues — no different from any other building. Plaintiffs, however, have vastly exaggerated the scope of the work that was required (both in the reports of their consultant, SBI Consultants, Inc. ("SBI"), and in their Complaint) in furtherance of their gambit to exact undue payments from Sponsor."
In April, the tenants filed a second lawsuit against the group, as well as service firm WSP, SLCE Architects, and McGraw Hudson Construction, which is owned by the founder of Macklowe Properties. The unit owners said those companies knew "since the outset of construction that the Building's white concrete façade's design was wholly defective and would never hold up."
The developers "conspired with the other Defendants to concoct and disseminate fraudulent misrepresentations through the condominium offering plan and the Department of Buildings to conceal these alarming defects from Unit Owners in order to secure massive profits and leave Plaintiffs holding the bag," unit owners said in the April complaint.
In May 2024, The Wall Street Journal published an analysis from real-estate listings and property records, as well as interviews with people familiar with the building, that showed that the ongoing issues and legal action have pushed down sales activity and prices.
Compass realtors Alexandra Hedaya and Jason Haber, however, told Business Insider that they hadn't yet seen any impact on prices as a result of the lawsuits.
They hold the listing for a 4,462-square-foot, five-bedroom on the 55th floor now listed for $29.5 million. The home first hit the market in 2022 for $33 million. The developer sold it to its current owner for 23.87 million in 2016, according to New York City property records.
"It's hard to prove a negative. I can't tell you who hasn't called me because they're like, 'Oh, I don't want to look in the building.' So I only know the people who contact me about the building," Haber said.
Macklowe Properties, WSP, and the developer group did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Representatives for SLCE Architects and CIM Group denied the accusations in the April complaint and told BI they planned to move to dismiss it.
An attorney for the unit owners told BI, "This matter extends beyond negligence into an alleged calculated scheme, driven by greed, that eroded trust."
Although litigation is ongoing, the lawsuits offer a glimpse of what it's like to live in the famous building.
Flooding and water infiltration
Tenants said they experienced "repeated" leakage and floods in the building's common areas, including two "substantial" leaks in 2018.
The leaks caused water to enter the elevator shaft, shutting down service for two of four residential elevators "for weeks," according to the 2021 complaint.
"Thirty-five units, as well as common areas, suffered water damage," the unit owners said. "An investigation revealed that the cause was poor plumbing installation, including loose bolts buried under insulation."
"Persistent" water infiltration issues have also affected the tower's sub-basement levels, the unit owners said.
Noise and vibrations
Other issues tenants had with 432 Park Avenue's structure were noise and vibration, which they called one of the building's "most persistent and disruptive defects" in 2021.
"Apartments are plagued by creaking, banging, and clicking noises. Using the trash chute sounds 'like a bomb,'" unit owners said in the complaint. "The noise and vibration issues have been so severe that some Unit Owners have been forced to move out for lengthy periods, and in at least one case for over nineteen months — during a pandemic — while the issue is remediated."
Elevator malfunctions
Malfunctions with the building's elevators were also mentioned in the 2021 complaint.
"While Elevator disruptions have been particularly pervasive in the Residential towers, all areas of the Building, including the retail area, garage, and commercial space, have experienced and continue to experience malfunctions and shutdowns," tenants said. "Even escalators in the commercial space have malfunctioned, requiring prolonged shutdowns."
In addition to water leakage, the unit owner said in the complaint that the construction resulted in "wind conditions frequently disrupting the Building's elevator operations."
The exterior white concrete façade
Last month, the second complaint from tenants focused on the white concrete façade that comprises the building's exterior.
Unit owners said the design means the exterior is "plagued with thousands of severe cracks, spalling, and other forms of deterioration, which have led to major water infiltrations and flooding, corrosion of the steel rebar reinforcing the concrete columns, as well as other significant damage."
They said the parties listed in their 2025 complaint knew the façade would "never" hold up, and the group ignored warnings about potential defects.
Other issues
Residents said there were also visible cracks in the drywall on the walls and ceilings of the condos.
But that's not all: The 2021 complaint also cited "baseboard pulling and misaligned joints, malfunctioning sliding doors, grout joint openings and cracking at walls or floors in ceramic and/or stone tiling, excessive fog and window condensation, gaps and misalignment between wall and ceiling light fixtures, and repeated circuit breaker tripping."
