City officials are again turning to the courts to find a solution to constant habitability concerns at Skyline Apartments, the notorious apartment building that has had such issues for at least about four years.
The city filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Skyline’s Chicago-based owners Clear Investment Group, seeking to wrest control of the building away from the investment group in favor of a court-appointed third party that would help turn the building around.
The city is also seeking a $2 million investment from Clear to help the third-party receiver fix the building. That’s a far cry from the $4.6 million the investment firm estimated would take to fix the building in 2023. Clear, the city alleges, also owes an additional $355,000 in payment for more than a hundred uncorrected property code violations.
Two key incidents prompted the city to file the lawsuit, said Michael Collins, the commissioner of the city’s department of Neighborhood and Business Development.
The first was a fire in March 2024 at a time when the city alleges the building didn’t have a working fire alarm system. Then, in March of this year, a standpipe break flooded the entirety of the high-rise’s basement with more than a million gallons of water, Collins said.
“As our community faces a severe housing shortage, we will not tolerate Clear’s failure to act and have taken the steps within our authority to stop the further decline of the property,” Mayor Ben Walsh said Wednesday in a press release.
Clear CEO Amy Rubenstein said she first heard of the lawsuit through a list of questions from a reporter. Rubenstein denied allegations by the city that Clear failed to invest quickly enough in the Skyline Apartments.
In an interview with Central Current, Rubenstein noted that prior to the devastating flood in March, the company was on the verge of putting apartments in four of the building’s floors back on the market.
Rubenstein and Director of Investments Lindsay Rodriguez said the building has seen millions in renovation work. They listed a number of investments they’ve made, including a new roof that cost $550,000, new water heaters that cost $350,000, and more than a million dollars in security.
“It’s been massive,” Rubenstein said. “That is how we were ready to go.”
Just two years ago, Syracuse officials thought Clear’s purchase of the property would turn around its highest density apartment building.
This is the second time the city has sought a court-appointed receiver for the property. In 2023, the city sought to appoint a receiver after Skyline’s former owners, Green National, a group operated by former Syracuse football player Tim Green, allowed the building to fall into a dire state of decay. Clear swooped in and purchased Skyline for $13 million, along with three other properties shortly after the city filed its legal action.
The city has declared portions of the building unfit for human habitation five times, the latest coming on March 3, according to the city’s open data portal. The building has 41 open codes violations ranging from vermin infestations, to issues with debris and trash, as well as problems with water heating.
Collins said there has not been an adequate response to the violations.
For city officials and elected leaders, Clear’s perceived acts of negligence by failing to address issues of habitability, show that the company is incapable of delivering on its promise to rehabilitate the building and return 352 apartments back into the market.
The standpipe break that flooded the building for several weeks was a breaking point for the city, Collins said. In the complaint, the city wrote that all services have been shut off from the building. The city’s action asks the court to compel Clear to “make the entire property a safe structure and habitable for human occupancy within 120 days of the order,” officials wrote in a press release.
“It was a massive leak in that it went on for a very long time because there was no attending to the building,” Collins said at a Wednesday press conference.
Collins accused the company of failing to act in a timely manner to address the leak, a pattern of behavior the city saw with the mounting code violations in the past two years.
“The building is now empty,” he added. “The building has not only not had progress to it, but we have had broken promises along the way. What we’ve seen is that the building is in some ways, in worse condition.”
Clear Investment Group CEO Amy Rubenstein denied the city’s accusations of not responding to issues properly, saying the company attempted to communicate with the city for the past two weeks and has received no response.
“We’ve been communicating with them and actually reaching out to them for the last couple weeks, and nobody’s been responding to us,” Rubenstein said.
She said that the leak was due to an incident where an individual stole copper pipes from the building, causing the pipe to break.
Rubenstein declined to provide Central Current with correspondence between Clear and the city that could prove Rubenstein’s claim that the city has been unresponsive.
“What we don’t want is to start a feud with the city, because ultimately, they are going to win,” Rubenstein said. “And so I would like to give them the chance to talk to us, but it has been very difficult.”
Rubenstein said she wants the city to restore electricity to the building so that the company can continue to work on re-opening the building. Two floors are ready to reopen, Rubenstein said.
City spokesperson Greg Loh told Central Current on Wednesday evening that the city stands by the accusations of unresponsiveness by Clear.
“The lack of action by Clear over nearly two years speaks for itself regarding the company’s credibility,” Loh said.
Read more of Central Current’s coverage
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