Self-made oil mogul Shalva Chigirinsky -- estimated to be worth $2.3 billion by Forbes in 2008 -- Spent 15.75 million on a NYC Apt and wants his down payment back!

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/this_apartment_cost_oil_tycoon_angel_FjCCXAJrzN0hgI3P220zuJ

By ANNIE KARNI

There's a cold war escalating on the Upper East Side between a Russian tycoon and a boutique hotel.

Self-made oil mogul Shalva Chigirinsky -- estimated to be worth $2.3 billion by Forbes in 2008 -- is suing the Mark Hotel to get out of his contract to purchase a $15.75 million luxury penthouse apartment and recoup a $4 million down payment.

Chigirinsky, who co-owned the Moscow Oil Co. with the Russian government, closed on the apartment in April 2008 and agreed to pay $5,000 per square foot -- the highest price per square foot in residential Manhattan real estate -- for a luxury three-bedroom penthouse on the 15th floor of the East 77th Street hotel.


Angel Chevrestt
WIDE OF THE ‘MARK’: Beleaguered Russian oilman Shalva Chigirinsky (inset) wants his $4 million down payment back from the Mark Hotel.
The 150 hotel rooms rent for between $400 and $2,000 a night, and Eliot Spitzer even reportedly arranged secret trysts with escorts in the cushy boudoirs.

Chigirinsky was one of only two buyers to put a down payment on the hotel's 42 co-op units created during a 2008 conversion. With almost no buyers, all but 10 co-ops were converted back into hotel rooms in the last year. Eight of the co-ops remain vacant and on the market.

Last year, Chigirinsky, 60, reportedly fled Russia after all of his assets were seized by his creditor, Sibir Energy. The suddenly cash-strapped mogul had to pledge his villa in the French Riviera, as well as the proceeds from the sale of his London mansion, to the company.

He was also implicated in a tax-evasion probe and sought political asylum in England, according to published reports.

Now he's trying to recoup his deposit on the 3,183-square-foot apartment, which he blasted as "uninhabitable, unsafe and in unfinished condition" in a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Chigirinsky claims he was promised "the best building in New York" and ended up instead with the wrong doors and unmatched oak floor planks in the master bedroom, living-room windows that were "not operational," and "doors, fits and finishes" that were "chipped and scratched."

He also complains that there was "no room service, no meaningful housekeeping, no concierge and no restaurant," and that the co-op was "largely vacant."

The hotel also deceived Chigirinsky by making the majority of unsold suites available for short-term leasing -- thereby lowering the value of the purchase and crippling its resale value, according to the suit.

But Chigirinsky's complaints are nothing more than poorly disguised buyer's remorse, according to the hotel's developer, Alexico.

The building was in the process of becoming fully operational when the buyer went into contract, and today Jean-Georges, the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel, delivers room service, the hotel manager said. A tour of the suite, 1501, showed functional windows and solid oak floors with nothing more than natural variation in hue.

The Attorney General's Office already rejected Chigirinsky's first attempt to recoup the $4 million down payment and declared him in default.

"This is a patently desperate, losing effort," said an Alexico spokesman.