Jackhammers welcome at stalled development

Construction on Riverdale’s eyesore of the decade, Tulfan Terrace, may finally be completed by January 2013.

What happens after that? Nobody knows.

Michael Goldberg, one of the owners of Ox-3620 LLC, said he is unsure whether the building’s 30 units will be up for sale or for rent. He cited the condo market’s precarious condition as the reason for his open mind on the subject.

His LLC bought the unfinished tower out of foreclosure in 2010 after cleaning up the financial mess left behind four years earlier by its previous mobbed-up owners
All 30 units have three bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms and include terraces.
Construction on the 20-story building began in 2004, but misdeeds — and the feds — caught up with one of the owners, James Murray.

Construction ceased in 2006 when Mr. Murray, also the project’s chief financier, was taken down on fraud and embezzlement charges related to another Riverdale development project — the Cambridge Mews — located at 3536 Cambridge Ave. His partners were left without enough capital to complete Tulfan Terrace and the building fell into foreclosure. Its hollow frame was left untouched for years.
Mr. Murray was charged with embezzling money from benefit funds, scheming to defraud the District Council and evading federal financial reporting requirements. He has since testified against former trustee of the New York City Carpenters Union, Joseph Olivieri, and was allowed to walk away from his own charges in June.
Things are back on track now.

Crews are completing the waterproofing, brickwork and windows on the exterior of the building, which Mr. Goldberg said he expects to be finished soon, followed by interior work that will take the rest of the year.

“The building should be enclosed soon, which is nice. Thank God for the warm weather,” he said.

Previous owners of the building expected to sell the units for up to $1 million in 2008, but the market has been anything but steady in recent years. Mr. Goldberg said his company was not trying to hit a home run, but rather just sell or rent the units quickly, depending on what the market is like a year from now.