Plans Filed For Condos At Scandal-Hit Rivington House

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — The owners of the Rivington House property on the Lower East Side are preparing to resume their plans to convert the onetime nursing home into luxury condos.

Developers of the property, located at 45 Rivington St., filed construction permits this month to resume work on the property, which has been at the center of a massive scandal since it was first sold in 2015.

The facility was previously a nursing home for patients with HIV/AIDs. In 2015, the facility's operator, the Allure Group, paid the city $16 million to lift a deed restriction which mandated that the property only be used for nonprofit healthcare purposes. Allure then flipped the property and sold it to developers for a stunning $116 million, displacing about 100 seniors in the process.

After outrage that the city had allowed Allure to lift the deed restriction, officials promised to reform the process and committed to increasing affordable housing for seniors on the Lower East Side.

In January, state attorney general Eric Schneiderman announced a settlement with the Allure Group. Schneiderman's probe was one of several launched after the real estate deal. Allure agreed to paid a $2 milion settlement to resolve the investigation.

As part of the agreement, Allure committed to building two new nursing home facilities, one on Lower East Side and one in Brooklyn, as well as to improving another facility it owns in Harlem. The settlement also requires Allure to give $1.25 million to local nonprofits and pay $750,000 in penalties to the state.

Now that Schneiderman's investigation has concluded, the building's owners are seeking to resume construction, which has been halted on the property since a partial stop-work order was issued there. The permits filed this month, which have not yet been approved, say that developers are looking to convert the building to 102 luxury apartments. The permits are for "renovation of (the) existing building and conversion to residential use," according to city records.

Some local politicians and activists are still seeking to prevent the luxury condos from opening up.

Council Member Margaret Chin, who represents the Lower East Side in City Hall, is still considering methods to fight the conversion.

"Our office is actively looking for ways to fight the conversion," a spokeswoman told the Lo Down in a statement. "Rivington House has been a community facility for decades, and we are not giving up on efforts to create a 21st century nursing facility in the building."

Image credit: Courtesy of Google Maps