With the state Attorney General and the City Comptroller already running investigations, the Department of Buildings has stepped into the spreading scandal over the Rivington House by placing a stop-work order on the former Lower East Side AIDS hospice that was recently sold to luxury condo developers.
The stop-work order, as first reported by the Bowery Boogie website, cites “Illegal conversion of commercial building/space to dwelling units.” The developers had already secured a permit for $1.5 million worth of interior demolition work on the red-brick building at 45 Rivington Street.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has been scrambling to contain the scandal, which began when the Allure Group, a for-profit care provider, paid the city $16 million to lift a deed restriction, which had required Rivington House to be used for non-profit health care in perpetuity. After promising to turn the property into a geriatric care facility, Allure promptly flipped the building to luxury condo developers at a $72 million profit.