By MICHAEL BROWN JR.
“Expected Occupancy Summer 2014,” reads the sign at a Bedford Park building.
It’s a five-story building at 174 E. 205th St. near the Grand Concourse, and is slated as the new offices for Woodlawn Medical Center Associations P.C., currently up the block at the Pickwick Arms at 3224 Grand Concourse.
And yet, despite signs indicating a summer grand opening, construction has largely stalled on the project. For now, tiny pockets of activity are seen. A black dust curtain hovers over the building, with renditions of the completed structure nailed to a green scaffolding. The completion has been dismissed by neighbors, shrugging it off as part of the neighborhood landscape, though resident Imani Walker has kept a keen eye over the standstill.
“It hasn’t been much progress,” said Walker, who’s observed the building so often that she has gotten used to its appearance. “I haven’t heard any thoughts on it, any complaints really. It’s just like a norm, I see this every day.”
She recalled seeing the first waves of construction, and the initial fervor–erecting the scaffolding and an ‘under construction’–though activity barely lasted.
Sardy Realty LLC originally owned the property, with TD Bank later acquiring it. The bank sold it to Jaswinder Multani of Yash & B Construction Corporation who is currently renting the lot to Woodlawn Medical Center. Neither representatives for the medical office responded to emails, phone calls and a visit to the office for an interview.
WMA runs out of an apartment building at Pickwick Arms fitted as a clinic, bringing to question why the company has allowed construction on a much bigger space to stagnate for so long.
Lumbered construction has been seen in other parts of the neighborhood. At the corner of 206th Street and Rochambeau Avenue in Norwood, a few blocks from the 205th Street site, construction on a new Muslim community center has halted after funds dried.
Typically, if a building’s progress has slowed considerably, then the city Buildings Department’s Stalled Sites Unit investigates on whether the structure is deemed safe. Owners can opt to be placed in the Stalled Sites Program in exchange for renewal of their work permits.
A Buildings Department spokesman said there are no open complaints or violations for the site, but said, the parcel owner still has responsibility for what is going on at the property.
“They must maintain [a project], and ensure that it is secure,” said the spokesman. “The failure to do so can result in violations being issued by DOB, and certain forms of violations can have substantial monetary penalties.”