UES Offices Destroyed By Billionaire's Botched Renovations: Lawsuit

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An Upper East Side medical office was destroyed when a billionaire shoe-shop owner's contractors left an upstairs sink running for an entire weekend, a new lawsuit contends.

ALDO founder Aldo Bensadoun is being sued for $1 million by Dr. Stephen J. Nicholas over damage done to his offices at the Saga House Condominium on East 74th Street, between Third and Lexington avenues, in 2021, according to court records.

Nicholas blames Bensadoun for hiring an inexperienced company — amid ALDO's reported financial struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic — to build a luxury triplex for his daughter Daniela, the lawsuit states.

"Given ALDO Group’s and the Bensadoun family’s financial struggles ... the Bensadoun family cut corners," the lawsuit says. "[They] employed general contractor based out of Quebec with limited experience performing construction work in New York City."

Nicholas and 14 other doctors runs a "high-end" orthopedics practice in units owned by SJN Properties, a real estate firm that also joined in the lawsuit against the condo board, which was filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Requests for comment sent to SAJO, the ALDO Group, and an attorney for the condo board were not immediately returned.

Bensadoun purchased the three adjacent third-floor apartments — directly above the medical offices — for about $6.7 million starting in 2015 through a limited partnership, the lawsuit says.

The ALDO founder then hired SAJO, a Quebec-based company, as a general contractor to carry out the project, the suit says.

Troubles began the night of Nov. 12, 2021, when an SAJO worker left a faucet running in one of the 6.5 bathrooms inside Bensadoun's triplex, the suit says.

The sink continued running until Sunday, when a building worker saw "water spilling from the 3rd floor, soaking the outside of the Building," according to the lawsuit.

By the time the worker turned off the overflowing sink, two of the orthopedists' three office units were destroyed, along with a portion of its lobby — a "catastrophic" flood, the lawsuit says.

It ultimately cost about $1 million for Nicholas's office and SJN to repair the sheetrock walls, ceilings, tile floors, cabinetry, equipment, countertops, thermostat, electrical systems, and other items damaged by the flood, the suit says.

Now, Nicholas and SJN allege that Bensadoun, through his LP, acted negligently by hiring SAJO to do the renovations, since the company lacked much experience "managing and performing construction in New York City, the lawsuit says.

Since the condo board is also responsible for maintaining the building, SJN and Nicholas named them in the suit as well — demanding at least $1 million in damages from the contractors, the board, and Bensadoun's company.