The race to cash in on the city’s lucrative, “prettier” sidewalk sheds is getting ugly.
Urban Umbrella — whose airy, white sheds with blossom-shaped roof arches are a shade less offensive than the city’s pervasive gloomy, green jungle-gyms — is suing rival Spring Scaffolding over sheds that allegedly infringe on Umbrella’s “unique” and “distinct” design.
The suit in New York federal court accuses Spring of trying to “piggyback off of” Urban Umbrella’s success and of violating the Building Code by using the color white, which the company contends the code allows only to be used by Urban Umbrella.
Spring lawyer Serge Krimnus responded that Urban Umbrella’s claim to have a unique, legally protected design is false.
He said Urban is trying to “bully the scaffolding industry” and Spring, which has a “stellar, 35-year reputation.”
The case lifts the lid, if only a crack, on the secretive shed industry, which blights hundreds of miles of sidewalks with steel-jungle monstrosities.
They’re spawned by Local Law 11, which requires facade inspections that usually find dangerous conditions and often result in sheds that stand for years.
Spring is counter-suing Urban Umbrella and founder Benjamin Krall for defamation and for interfering with Spring’s business relationships by allegedly telling Spring clients that its sheds are “illegal.”
Krall insisted, “We are the only independent company that has an exemption to offer a different-looking product.”
Urban Umbrella’s claim to have an exclusive, legal right to paint its sheds white dates back to 2011, when it won a design competition launched by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The Building Code since then states, “Sidewalk sheds that are of a model whose prototype won a design competition recognized by the city may be white in color.”
All others are inexplicably required to be hunter green except for “dark metallic” cross-bracing.
The “umbrellas” have slender support poles that seem to blossom like flowers at their tops instead of ugly steel cross-braces.
They adorn prestigious locations such as the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South, Burberry on East 57th Street, Tiffany and Fendi in Soho, and many glam boutiques on Madison Avenue.
But Spring sheds that are also white recently popped up at the Normandie Court apartment building at 205 E. 95th St., the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway and the retail corner of 608 Fifth Ave. at East 49th Street, among other high-profile locations.
Spring justifies its use of white by arguing in its court filing, “Companies whose scaffolding products resemble a model whose prototype won a design competition recognized by the city may use the color white.”
However, the Building Code says nothing about “resemblance.”
Department of Buildings spokesman Andrew Rudansky stated that Urban Umbrella sheds may be white “as they are the only prototype that has won a design competition recognized by the city.”
Urban Umbrella, launched in 2009, has a mere 2% share of the city’s half-billion-dollar annual shed-rental business and only 120 of a total 9,000 shed installations, Krall said.
But they’re highly lucrative because landlords have paid up to $400 per linear foot for them, or four times more than for a typical steel-jungle monstrosity. (Krall said they recently lowered the cost to two or three times the norm.
While the rivals duke it out, a new company, Shed Innovations, plans to launch its own new design next year.
Also, the DOB is reviewing proposals requested by Mayor Eric Adams for new shed styles that could further rain on Urban Umbrella’s dominance.
Rudansky said the DOB, at Adams’ urging, is also working with the City Council to “make immediate, interim changes” to “unlock more color choices.”
More hues other than green or white are popping up already.
Adding to the color confusion is Urban Umbrella’s own blue-painted sheds outside the Burberry store at 9 E. 57th St.
Asked to explain, Krall said, “I don’t think the code is clear on color uses so long as it conforms to the brand. I am not sure even the DOB knows what violations to give.”
Rudansky said he has yet to receive any complaints about the blue-hued scaffolding.
“We would need to make a field visit to observe the shed in person,” he added.