Lone Tenant Battles Extell Over Upper East Side Development

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A megadeveloper's quest to clear an Upper East Side block in order to construct a large building is being blocked by a rent-stabilized tenant who refuses to vacate his longtime home.

Extell, the developer that kicked off the "Billionaire's Row" of skyscrapers in Midtown and has constructed a number of other residential towers on the Upper East Side, has spent the past few years purchasing and demolishing the tenement-style buildings that line First Avenue between East 85th and 86th streets.

Nearly all of those buildings have been emptied out, except one: the six-story building on the corner of 86th Street where one man is holding fast to his apartment in the face of legal pressure.

That man, Greg Marshall, has lived for more than 20 years in his third-floor studio apartment, where he has paid $1,851.71 per month in rent. Extell, which paid $10.8 million to purchase his building in 2014, declined to renew his lease last year in an effort to drive him out, court records show.

But the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal, which oversees rent-stabilized homes, sided with Marshall in April, prompting a legal challenge by Extell, which says it has the right to force out the sole remaining tenant in the 14-unit building. (The case was first reported by the New York Times.)

Marshall did not return a request for comment, and his lawyer, Fred Seeman, said his client has no interest in discussing his case publicly.

"He’s a working guy," Seeman told Patch. "He just wants to go to work, go home, go to bed. He doesn’t want to be bothered with any of this."

"They are being very closed-lips"

Marshall's case to remain in his home revolves around Extell's refusal to disclose what it plans to build on the site. Initially, Extell told Marshall it would build a 36-unit mixed-use building, but the company's chairman told the Times that he was "looking at building" a school with "hundreds" of apartments on top of it — including some that would be listed below market rate.

Seeman, meanwhile, says Extell has not satisfied a prior state court holding that a landlord must show "a good faith intention and financial ability" to construct a new building before displacing tenants to demolish an existing one. He was skeptical, too, of Extell's altruistic claims.

"'Maybe we’ll build a school?' Yeah, right. Affordable housing? Yeah, right," he laughed. "They are being very closed-lips about what’s going on."

Marshall's attorneys also claim that Extell has been refusing to pay his building's utility bills, resulting in a 2019 shutoff by Con Edison that has caused cooking gas to be unavailable to this day — a tactic that "can only be described as harassment," they wrote in a court filing.

Extell did not return a request for comment.

Marshall is not the block's only holdout. Another mid-block building a few doors down, owned by a pair of infamous landlords, remains standing as the owners reportedly refuse to sell it to Extell.

A demolition application that Extell filed for Marshall's building in 2019 remains in limbo, and Seeman said the court proceedings could drag on for months more.

Gary Barnett, Extell's chairman, told the Times that Marshall had been offered millions of dollars to leave his apartment, and argued he was blocking the construction of much-needed housing. Indeed, the Upper East Side has built far fewer residential units in recent years than other parts of the city, which is facing a critical housing shortage.

But Seeman, the lawyer, contends there is no need for the demolition to take place.

"This is perfectly good housing," he said. "There’s nothing wrong with the building my client’s in."

Have an Upper East Side news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.

Previous coverage:

• Infamous UES Landlords Stymie Extell's Next Development: Report
• More Demolitions Coming To Vacant UES Block As Development Looms
• Three More Buildings On Vacant UES Block To Be Demolished