Rivington House is a building located in Manhattan, New York City. Until recently, the building had operated as a specialty nursing home for patients with HIV/AIDS. The building featured in the media for the way city officials handled the sale of the property. In 2015, VillageCare and a small group of nursing home owners applied to lift the deed restriction on the building, allowing it to be transformed from an AIDS nursing home into a residential or commercial property. When the building was ultimately sold for $116 million, Mayor Bill de Blasio drew criticism for straying from his policy to increase affordable housing in the city. The building was eventually reclassified and sold to China Vanke Co., Adam America Real Estate, and Slate Property Group for residential development.
Background
Rivington House operated as a HIV/AIDS nursing home from 1995 until 2015. The lack of patients and the change in community care for people with HIV led VillageCare to announce in 2014 that they would be closing the facility in Manhattan. As local press reported at the time, “the need for a single-purpose skilled nursing facility like Rivington House that segregates AIDS patients is long past." By 2015, Rivington House was non-performing and nearly vacant, and a nursing home operator in the region called The Allure Group purchased the building. Within the first year under new ownership, the building featured in the New York City press after an application was made to change the property's deed restrictions. Its restrictive deed prevented the property from being developed like many of the buildings in the same district, stating that the building had to be used for non-profit residential health care. Following the required payment to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, as determined by the city, the building's deed restriction was lifted, and The Allure Group sold the building for $116 million to a developer. While sales of this value are common in New York City, the media honed in on Mayor Bill de Blasio for moving away from his policy of providing affordable housing. Ricardo Morales, a deputy commissioner at the Citywide Department of Administrative Services was eventually relieved of his duties following the sale of Rivington House. More information about the deal entered the media in 2016, when Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested he didn't know about the land deal, prior to signing off on the lifting of the deed restriction. The statement made by Bill de Blasio was questioned following the release of a report by the New York City Department of Investigation. The report suggested that while many city officials denied knowing about the details of the deal, they were in fact fully aware of what was taking place. The NY Post reported that Bill de Blasio's administration offered millions of dollars the month prior, in February 2016, to effectively undo the deal as it would reflect badly on the administration. The report stated that both The Allure Group and the city wanted to reclassify the building, and both parties knew a $17 million fee was needed specifically to remove the deed restriction. The report also showed that the city understood any fees would result in the nursing home being flipped by The Allure Group, as the property was no longer viable in its current position. The New York Times and NY Post made similar remarks to the report, referring to a meeting on March 11, 2015. If a $16.15 million payment was required to lift the deed restriction it “could not afford to pay the cost to remove the deed restriction and retain the property as a nursing home,” and “would consider converting the property into a luxury apartment building and forgo the nursing home renovation.” The city of New York opened an investigation into what had gone wrong with their management of the situation. However, the probe found no illegal conduct. The city announced they could not sue The Allure Group, as legally they had not done anything wrong and determined instead that there was a need to revamp its own internal policies and procedures. Despite the controversy caused by the sale and removing the deed restriction from Rivington House, the state legislators decided to reject a bill aimed at preventing similar sales from taking place in the future.
