Canadian developer Stephane Boivin is not as crafty as he thought he was. Boivin bought Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz's Soho townhouse at 186 Spring Street in April of 2012, paying $5.5 million and claiming that he was purchasing the house "for personal use." Two months later he announced his plan to demolish it and absorb the site into his mixed-used condominium project at neighboring 182 Spring Street, and quickly followed through, razing the house that October. And that was when his legal troubles started. Though preservation groups had fought to save the 1824 townhouse, it was a Connecticut-based private equity fund, Silo Capital, that filed a suit against Boivin for improperly demolishing 186 Spring after using it as collateral for a loan. Silo also requested a temporary restraining order to prevent Boivin from also demolishing 182 Spring and alleged that he had stopped making interest payments. As a result, the project stalled, and now Boivin is forced to put the site on the market. It's not all bad for the developer, though—if he gets his full $38 million asking price, he'll have more than doubled his investment of $15.6 million (he bought 182 Spring in 2011 for $10.1 million).
· 182-186 Spring Street in Soho hits the market for $38 million [BuzzBuzz, via The Real Deal]
· 186 Spring Street coverage [Curbed]
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