FORT WADSWORTH — The controversial demolition of a former Jesuit retreat house on Staten Island started again last week after it previously had been ordered to stop.
The demolition permits for Mount Manresa — which expired in December — were reissued by the city on Feb. 2 and a stop work order on the site was lifted, according to a spokesman for the Department of Buildings.
Developers the Savo Brother's were allowed to start work again after they notified 200 adjacent homes of the demolition, the spokesman said.
Residents had banded together and formed the "Save Mount Manresa Committee" to try and stop the $15 million sale of the site to the Savo Brothers, who plan to build 20 condos, but it was finalized last year.
The site was hit with stop work orders in September and October 2014 and the inspectors, contractors and developers were fined a total of $67,000 by the city for filing false asbestos inspections to the Department of Environmental Protection.
In December, inspectors Paul Santoro, 35, and his father Gaspere Santoro, 74, were arrested for filing paperwork to the city saying that the buildings had no traces of asbestos, even though they knew otherwise, according to the office of Staten Island's District Attorney.
