UPDATED, Feb. 17, 2022, 2:30 p.m.: On the outside, the Sage House is a well-appointed co-op on a quiet corner in Gramercy Park. But inside, a resident alleging favoritism from the co-op board over his dirty laundry — literally.
Resident Jeffrey Pollack is suing the building’s co-op board after it denied his request to put a laundry room in his apartment. His beef: the board apparently let its president do exactly that in 2015.
The saga started in 2019, when Pollack and his wife submitted plans to combine and renovate their two neighboring units.
With no need for two kitchens, the couple hoped to convert one into a laundry room with a washer and dryer. The building’s engineer reviewed their plans, and after some changes agreed they were structurally acceptable, pending board approval. But that approval would never come.
Instead, the board claimed its lease agreements prohibited laundry rooms, a restriction the Pollacks deny. Tensions over the issue reached a fever pitch when the couple spotted an online listing for the apartment owned by the board president, banker Michael Sodikoff, that included a laundry room.
The complaint cites “information and belief” specifying that Sodikoff installed his own laundry room when he combined his two apartments in 2015.
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Ryan Lawler, an attorney with Mintz & Gold representing the Pollacks, called the approval “self-dealing by the Board in an attempt to increase the value of the Sodikoff Apartments” in the lawsuit.
Lawler didn’t return a request for comment, and Sodikoff couldn’t be reached.
In addition to monetary compensation, Pollack wants a court order that either allows him to install a laundry room in his unit or requires Sodikoff to remove his.
A previous version of this article mistakenly identified Jeffrey Pollack, the plaintiff in the suit, as the former XFL CEO and president of the same name.