A neighborhood quarrel lands a CD superstore in court
By DAVID BERNSTEIN | October 27, 2008
Virgin Megastore, on the first three floors of the old Tower Records building at Newbury Street and Mass Ave, is getting upscale upstairs neighbors — eventually. The building’s owners, MSKC Newbury LLC, have been converting, and selling, the upper floors as high-end condominiums. But progress has been slow, in part because of an increasingly bitter relationship between the building’s owners and Megastore’s management — a relationship so strained it’s spawned a civil lawsuit.
The acrimony peaked in late July, when Virgin refused to allow the owner’s workers into the store to inspect the third-floor roof. On the 28th of that month, construction workers on the fourth floor accidentally flooded the store below.
Fortunately for us, much of the pissing match — detailed in angry letters and emails excerpted here — is available in court documents despite both sides’ attempts to have the records sealed for confidentiality considerations. The judge in the civil case decided there are no trade secrets involved in allegations that, for example, a building superintendent warned Virgin employees not to talk to construction workers because they will “beat the hell out of you.”
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