Judge Awards Zeckendorfs Arte Moreno’s Penthouse Deposit
Los Angeles Angels owner Arturo Moreno is on a losing streak.
In 2023, his team lost out on re-signing superstar two-way player Shohei Ohtani. This year, the Angels lost 100 games, a first for the franchise.
And now, Moreno has lost in court.
A federal judge ruled against Moreno in his years-long dispute with the Zeckendorf family, finding that the developers would hold on to his $8.5 million deposit for a penthouse at 520 Park Avenue.
Moreno and his wife, Carole, agreed in 2017 to buy PH-58 for $34 million. After putting down an $8.5 million deposit, the couple backed out of the deal in 2019, days before the closing, citing noise concerns. The Zeckendorfs sued for breach of contract in 2022, seeking $10 million. The Morenos countersued in 2023, seeking $8.5 million, the amount of their original deposit.
The dispute centered on noise from a neighboring equipment room with a tank and pump system. The Morenos claimed that the developers violated their contract by not taking “all reasonable measures” to ensure that noise from the tank and pump system did not infringe on their “quiet enjoyment” of the condo.
Lorna Schofield, a federal judge for the U.S. Southern District Court of Manhattan, did not buy those arguments, writing in her decision that the noise was not unreasonable and the Zeckendorfs took all reasonable measures to manage it.
The developers were awarded the $8.5 million deposit, in addition to interest and attorney fees.
“This decision is a complete vindication of our client’s position,” attorneys Terrence Oved, Darren Oved and Aaron Solomon of Oved & Oved said in a statement. “The message is clear: a contract is a commitment, not an option, and pretextual disputes to escape binding agreements will not be condoned.”
Both sides had previously had their motions for summary judgment dismissed, which led to a one-day trial last year that featured wonky testimony over acoustic levels (somewhere between a “whisper” and a “suburban area at night” for an auxiliary pump, according to the Morenos’ acoustic expert) and how often the main pump was activated.
An attorney for Moreno did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the decade since the dispute began, the Zeckendorfs have managed to resell the penthouse for $32 million, as well as the building’s trophy penthouse unit, which went for $79 million to private equity tycoon Orlando Bravo (Bravo and the Zeckendorfs are embroiled in a separate lawsuit, over an impending skyscraper’s threat to his unit’s Central Park views).
It also likely won’t be difficult for Moreno to stomach the lost deposit: he agreed earlier this month to sell the Angels to fellow billionaire Stan Kroenke at a roughly $4 billion valuation.
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