Williamsburg’s Bathhouse, a chic, millennial wellness center and sauna, is in hot water with its downstairs neighbors for soaking their office space in a moldy stream of pool runoff, according to a new legal filing.
Last week, a personal injury firm that set up their Williamsburg office less than a year before the spa began to build a rooftop pool, sued Bathhouse and its landlords for three years of persistent leaks, black mold and structural damage that the firm says has resulted from the pool’s construction and operation.
“If you were to speak to anyone in this building, everyone has black mold, everyone has leaks, everyone has showering water coming through,” said Nicole Brenecki, a partner at Jodré Brenecki.
The lawsuit comes after a number of complaints came to light describing mold and hygiene issues in the spa. A Bathhouse spokesperson said the allegations against the business “are unsupported by facts,” and that the mold claims in the office space “do not involve the Bathhouse location in any way.”
“We have great relationships with both our fellow tenants and our landlord, and we hope that these parties can resolve their dispute amicably,” said the representative.
When Brenecki finished moving her firm from Queens to the building at 101 North 10th Street in Williamsburg and renovating the office in 2022, unbeknownst to her, the spa was about to break ground on a rooftop pool in coordination with the landlord.
“What followed were months of violent shaking, falling debris, fire sparks, leaks, dust, mold, chemical odors, and noise so severe that plaintiff could not conduct any necessary legal work,” the lawsuit alleges.
Brenecki’s lawsuit splits the spa’s offenses up into the period of time of pool construction and the period since it became operational. During construction, the suit alleges, “the building did not merely experience noise. It shook violently, affecting structural elements including ceilings, walls, and foundations. Substantial cracks formed in and around the premises, some the width of a human arm.”
One day Brenecki was working in her office when the ceiling opened, and sparks rained down, burning her carpet — one of many examples of the structural damage the complaint alleges. Over the summer, she was supposed to hold a fundraiser for Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral campaign before the hallway ceiling collapsed, canceling the event.
As a result of all the disruption Brenecki’s office was rendered functionally unusable for core legal work during the construction.
After the pool became operational, Brenecki said that the office has faced intermittent leaks from the ceiling and walls, with the water ballooning in the paint and soaking the floor and furniture. When she hired a contractor to repair the water damage, they found layers of black mold inside the sheetrock that she alleges has caused serious health risks to her staff. In addition, the building has an ongoing heating malfunction that the landlords have not adequately responded to.
Building owner North 11 Associates has failed to address the structural problems, and refused to acknowledge the uninhabitable conditions, the suit says.
Faced with these issues, the law firm has begun to withhold rent and place funds in escrow. The suit is aiming to rescind the firm’s lease and pay for damages that include the cost of renovations that it paid for when it moved in.
Brenecki estimates that including the damages that have resulted from business interference, the cost could get up to the “high six figures.”
A representative of North 11 Associates reached by phone declined to comment on the lawsuit. The Bathhouse representative said that the spa was named solely as leverage in the disagreement, and that the construction work on the pool was performed in full code compliance.
Brenecki said that though she works as a personal injury lawyer, she’s always tried to avoid litigation in her own personal life. In this instance though, she reached the “end of her patience” and said the landlords picked the wrong tenant to ignore.
“If they don’t wanna work with me at the very end, they’re gonna get fried because this is what I do best — litigation,” she said.
