Crain's New York Business, May 27, 2024

A tale of two Park Avenues

Fortunes are diverging for of ce landlords

| By Aaron Elstein

For o ce owners north of Grand Central Terminal on Park Avenue, it feels like the best of times.

e bankers who occupy many of the buildings there have returned to work, an act of solidarity with landlords to whom they’ve written billions of dollars’ worth of mortgages. JPMorgan is building its 70-story headquarters, and demand for premium o ce space on the avenue is so strong that developers are daring to dream of building more. But south of Grand Central, it’s the worst of

times. A shortage of casually dressed o ce workers — who tend to work in elds such as tech and media — is causing headaches for landlords including Charles Cohen, who owns two big o ce buildings south of Grand Central and defaulted in February on more than half a billion dollars’ worth of personally guaranteed loans.

“North of the station, people wear suits to work, and south, it’s jeans and T-shirts,” observed Gabe Marans, vice chairman at the real estate brokerage Savills. “ e jeans and

CHASING GIANTS

Brooklyn startup has a ‘Mad Max’ solution to easily make any bike electric.

T-shirt wearers haven’t come back as much.” e widening gap between Park Avenue’s north and south sides can’t be explained entirely by location; both are convenient for commuters. But buildings to the north are newer and taller and o er amenities that enable tenants to eat or sleep at work so they aren’t a ected by the scarcity of shops on the avenue below. From East 40th to East 59th streets, asking rents on Park are the city’s highest at $110 per square foot, according to Savills. e availability rate is half Midtown’s 17% average.

See PARK on Page 18

Thor Equities details $3 billion casino proposal

Coney Island project would also include a hotel, concert venue

yB Nick Garber

e developers pushing a casino complex at Coney Island are going public with their full, sprawling proposal, which would require some of its own approvals at the city level before competing for a lucrative gaming license.

BY THE NUMBERS

The city blocks the casino complex would span between West 15th and 12th streets, between Surf Avenue and the boardwalk.

Led by Brooklyn developer Joseph Sitt and his company or Equities, the project would include a 500room hotel, 92,000-squarefoot convention center, commercial space, a concert venue, and, of course, the 395,000-squarefoot casino — amounting to a $3 billion investment, the company says. or and its partners on the project — Saratoga Casino Holdings, the Chickasaw Nation, and hospitality rm Legends —

GOTHAM GIG

‘Good Day New York’ co-anchor has an appetite for local news and ne dining.

Buildings on the northern part of Park Avenue, such as 280 Park Ave. (top photo), are faring better than Park Avenue South buildings below 38th Street (bottom photo). BUCK ENNIS

See CASINO on Page 22

A rendering released by the developers shows the proposed Coney Island development. | THOR EQUITIES

Adams’ City of Yes business-boosting zoning plan advances toward approval after modest changes

yB Nick Garber

e City Council advanced Mayor Eric Adams’ business-boosting zoning plan on May 22, making relatively modest changes to appease wary lawmakers and winning commitments from the Adams administration to protect manufacturing and regulate last-mile delivery warehouses.

After lengthy negotiations that continued until shortly before the votes, City of Yes for Economic Opportunity passed a zoning subcommittee 5-2, followed by an 8-2 vote by the land use committee. at sends the package back to the City Planning Commission, which is expected to approve the changes and tee up a nal vote by the full council in June.

e biggest change, as Crain’s reported May 21, was the removal of a provision that would have made it possible to open a corner store in a residential area. But lawmakers preserved the most noteworthy of the 18 di erent policies that the Adams administration put forward in the Economic Opportunity package.

Lawmakers tweaked the mayor’s proposed rules clarifying the kinds of businesses people can operate out of their homes — the result will cap the allowable size at 1,000 square feet and reduce the number of permitted employees from three to just one. Another proposal allowing commercial uses on the upper oors of mixeduse buildings has been changed to ban rooftop bars above apartments and require that “amusement uses” only be below, not above, residences.

Provisions making it easier for life science labs to open in regular commercial districts, and to expand their footprints near hospitals and universities, will be preserved — with the only change being to ban new labs in some mixed-use neighborhoods outside of Manhattan.

e council’s changes came in response to concerns it heard from community boards, said Bronx lawmaker Kevin Riley, chair of the zoning subcommittee.

Board members said they feared noisy commercial uses and transforming neighborhoods into mixed-use districts. A full text of the revisions was not immediately available, although the council released a 5-page summary on May 22.

Outside of City of Yes

Some of the most consequential new policies could come from outside City of Yes itself. As part of the negotiations, the council secured a promise from the Adams administration to advance a separate zoning change requiring a special permit for last-mile delivery facilities, which have roiled some outer-borough neighborhoods over concerns about pollution and truck tra c. e process of creating the new permit will begin by March 2025, the council announced, and the administration will also work with the council on legislation to regulate emissions linked to warehouses.

The administration also committed to budgeting $4.7 million for 60 new Department of Buildings staffers who will enforce some of the new rules through a “proactive enforcement program,” according to the summary document released by the council. Lawmakers had pressed the administration to beef up re -

was modi ed to add a 3,000-squarefoot limit in mixed-use districts, down from 5,000 square feet in the original plan. e council also added a ban on some manufacturing that involves chemicals, machinery, metal and paper.

“This historic initiative will remove outdated limitations on businesses and ensure that local retail streets and commercial centers across the city remain lively places that sustain our neighborhoods.”

Eric Adams, NYC mayor

sources for the short-staffed agency.

e council made mild changes to most of the other Economic Opportunity proposals. A policy allowing “clean” manufacturers like ceramic studios and jewelry makers to open in commercial districts

A proposal allowing indoor agriculture in commercial districts was changed to ban indoor cultivation of cannabis, and a section allowing micro-distribution delivery hubs to open in storefronts will now require a special permit outside of Manhattan. Another rule removing a ban on re-occupying vacant storefronts in historic districts was tweaked to allow only

small-scale retail, not bigger businesses like department stores.

The agreed-upon package also includes the reforms pushed by lawmakers that aim to protect the city’s industrial sector — and the middle-class jobs that it promises — from intrusion by commercial businesses. The reforms include creating a new category of manufacturing district where all commercial uses would be limited to 10,000 square feet per lot, and banning big-box retail in new manufacturing districts.

‘Blanket approach’

Riley, explaining the decision to nix the corner-store provision, said lawmakers objected to any “blanket approach that treats all residential neighborhoods the same,” which he called “not sound land-use planning.”

Mayor Adams, in a statement, said the May 22 votes advanced his goal of rebuilding the city’s economy.

“ is historic initiative will remove outdated limitations on businesses and ensure that local retail streets and commercial centers across the city remain lively places that sustain our neighborhoods,” Adams said.

e no-votes on May 22 all came from Staten Island’s three council members, including Democrat Kamillah Hanks, who is typically a relative ally of the mayor’s. at dissent could be a sign of things to come for the mayor’s more contentious third City of Yes plan, focused on housing, which is expected to face serious opposition when it reaches the council later this year.

EVENTS CALLOUT

JUNE 12

NETWORKING WITH REAL ESTATE

Join us for networking, deal-making, and a live interview with New York City Planning Director, Dan Garodnick, the architect of the ambitious City of Yes initiative to modernize zoning regulations to support small businesses, create affordable housing and promote sustainability. Garodnick will discuss the details, timing, opportunities, and potential economic impact in a conversation with Crain’s New York Editorin-Chief Cory Schouten.

Two City Council committees advanced the City of Yes for Economic Opportunity package, which would loosen rules about where businesses can locate and how big they can grow. | ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

Brooklyn startup develops ‘Mad Max’ solution

to easily make any bicycle electric

The upstart: CLIP

Before there was CLIP, there was Som Ray biking to work in Brooklyn.

“It was awesome. It was healthy, felt good, but very soon, it became a chore,” he said. Ray would show up sweaty, out of breath and tired. But purchasing an e-bike was out of the question: it cost thousands of dollars, the bikes weighed a ton, and besides, he had just purchased a new bicycle. He knew there must be a better solution.

“Maybe I can just put something on this bike and make it electric?” he mused.

Ray, a mobility designer and CLIP’s chief executive o cer, was inspired by other attempts to convert bikes into e-bikes, notably the Copenhagen Wheel. But these options were prohibitively expensive and needed to be professionally installed. He wanted to build something that could easily be attached and removed from a bicycle, no tools necessary.

Deborah Diamond, who lives outside Seattle, is one of CLIP’s early adopters. She and her partner wanted to bike, but the hills on Vashon Island where they live presented a major challenge for the 74-year-old couple.

“We didn’t like how heavy the electric bikes were. We had tried out various ones, and they were too heavy for us to lift them up into a vehicle or onto the bike rack,” said Diamond. “[CLIP] seemed ideal. at we could get something that was portable, that we could put o and on the bike, and that would still give us the boost to be able to go up hills.”

Looking for inspiration, Ray and his brother-inlaw, Clem de Alcala, now CLIP’s chief operating o cer, studied the designs of French manufacturer VéloSoleX. e company’s SoleX bike, famously adopted by the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Steve McQueen, was created in post-war France. Marketed as a cross between a bike and a moped, the SoleX had a small motor mounted to the front wheel and could reach 20 MPH.

Ray and de Alcala had their reference point but needed to translate the SoleX into a modern product. After three prototypes across four years, the pair found their solution.  e result is a compact motor that latches onto the front wheel of almost any bike and provides a cheaper alternative to e-bikes. e motor is connected via Bluetooth to a button a rider attaches to the handlebars and activates a pedal assistant. CLIP’s motors start at $499, whereas e-bikes clock in at $1,100 on the low end. e electrical motor charges in an hour and can help riders reach up to 15 MPH, propelling them between 6-12 miles on a single charge.

CLIP has raised a total of $4.75 million across three seed rounds and employs 10 workers. e company has shipped 400 devices so far and is scaling manufacturing in India to reach a monthly production capacity of 500 units by the end of the year.

Soon after receiving their CLIP, they began biking more regularly, starting with two miles a day, soon hitting three miles, then ve, and so on. Diamond’s partner recently completed a 12-mile bike run just a few weeks ago. “We hadn’t biked for 50 years,” she added.

The reigning Goliath: Rad Power Bikes

Electric bicycle sales have soared nationwide over the past few years. According to the most recent data, over one million bikes were sold in 2022, compared to 325,000 e-bike sales in 2018.

Rad Power Bikes, based in Seattle, is at the forefront of the e-bike craze. Founded in 2007, the company has raised nearly $330 million in funding at a $1.65 billion valuation, according to Pitchbook, and employs over 400 people. e company o ers 16 di erent e-bike models, ranging from $1,099 to $2,199.

How to conquer the giant

In 2018, Ray and de Alcala founded CLIP and set up shop inside Newlab, a startup incubator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Before raising a seed round, Ray built a “Mad Max kind of thing” that served as CLIP’s proof of concept.

Both remember trying out the rst prototype and realizing the promise of what they were building.

“I was like, ‘shit, this works!’” recounted Ray after trying the prototype for the rst time. “I called Clem, sent him the video, and he was very excited.”

De Alcala recalls a ride in Prospect Park as the moment he knew they were onto something.

“I was passing this rider training [in] all spandex on a performance bike. And I passed this person on the incline in with this crazy prototype, without a sound,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s de nitely a huge potential.’”

With a re ned prototype in hand, the pair began reaching out to investors and centered their pitch on a low-cost mobility solution with environmental bene ts.

Raising CLIP’s rst seed round was tricky, Ray said. “Hardware is typically di cult to raise money for, especially if it’s a completely new product. ere is always also this kind of hype around tech that software has to be a key component of it.”

But the pair pushed forward with the theory that investors and customers would follow if they could ne-tune the hardware at a low cost.

Sandiip Bhammer, founder and managing partner of Green Frontier Capital, was one of the rst people to buy into Ray and de Alcala’s vision.

“When you start integrating mobility solutions, like what CLIP o ers, into everyday life, it really takes away from your dependence on fossil fuels and is a signi cant step towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” he explained.

Bhammer went on to become one of the lead investors in CLIP’s rst seed round and has a seat on the company’s board.

The next challenge

e next step in the company’s expansion is developing a new product, dubbed the “CLIP Bolt,” for emerging economies.

“You cannot change the world. You may change behavior in Western countries, but in emerging economies, you need something di erent,” said de Alcala. Instead of it being easily installable and removable, the “CLIP Bolt” will be screwed onto the bike wheel and will include a swappable battery riders can access through a subscription model. De Alcala wants to sell the CLIP Bolt for under $100, signi cantly lower than the company’s standard $499 model.

“It’s a di erent business model and a di erent price point, di erent products, but the ambition of CLIP is to have a global impact on mobility,” added de Alcala.

Olivia Bensimon is a freelance journalist in New York City who reports on human-centered stories.

CLIP co-founders Som Ray (right) and Clem de Alcala (left) have raised $4.75M across three seed rounds to create electric motors that attach to bicycle wheels. | BUCK ENNIS

Beth Israel’s imminent closing may open up real estate possibilities

Just as it did when Cabrini Medical Center and Saint Vincent’s Hospital closed years before

Lower Manhattan may soon lose another hospital, as Mount Sinai Beth Israel is scheduled to close this summer in the face ofnancial losses.

And if past is prologue, Beth Israel’s campus — a tight pack of buildings by Stuyvesant Square park and between trendy enclaves like Gramercy and the East Village — could make developers giddy.

Indeed, the 2008 closure of the Cabrini Medical Center between East 19th and East 20th streets paved the way a decade later for Gramercy Square, a four-building high-end housing development from a team led by David Bistricer’s Clipper Equity.

Similarly, after shuttering in 2010, Saint Vincent’s Hospital on Seventh Avenue in Greenwich Village gave way to Greenwich Lane, a Rudin Management-developed multisite condo complex.

For its part, Beth Israel, which merged with Mount Sinai in 2013, says it does not attract enough patients to be a viable business and has lost $1 billion in a decade, despite investments worth hundreds of millions.

But turning out the lights hasn’t been so easy for Beth Israel, which was founded on the Lower East Side in 1889 and relocated to Stuyvesant Square in 1929. In April the state’s Department of Health, which needs to approve hospital closures, questioned why Beth Israel needed to close, possibly jeopardizing the site’s planned July 12 closing date, though hospital o cials say a response is coming.

At the same time, local activists, public housing tenant groups and advocates for the disabled have jointly sued Mount Sinai over losing medical services, adding that Beth Israel’s 2023 losses of $172 million are not much worse than other Mount Sinai sites, such as the West Side’s Roosevelt Hospital, which lost $122 million last year.

“So why choose Beth Israel and blame the closure on losses?” the suit says. “Because the real estate on the south end of the Gramercy ParkStuyvesant Park area is very, very valuable.”

Mount Sinai, which denies it has ulterior real estate motives, is seeking to dismiss the suit.

If Beth Israel does go dark, it would spell the end of another chapter in the long medical history of Stuyvesant Square, which for decades was the place to go to set broken bones, beat drug addiction, deliver babies, undergo brain surgery and train to be a nurse. Some sites where that work was performed have already turned into luxury condos and college dorms, and the area’s reinvention may not be done yet.

Beth Israel is no stranger to selling local holdings, like this nine-story, blockwidth Classical Revival-style site, which from the 1960s onward was the Morris J. Bernstein Institute, a drug-rehab facility. But in 1984, Beth Israel sold the limestone, brick and terracotta edi ce for $8 million to developers Barnet Liberman and Winthrop Chamberlin. They received approval to convert the property into a 127-unit condo two years later. Its duplexes and triplexes appear to have struggled to nd takers during the recession in the late 1980s, and the building, rechristened Rutherford Place, functioned mostly as a rental until a new push in the mid-2000s to unload its homes. The 1902 property, on the National Register, was constructed with a $1 million donation from nancier J.P. Morgan, a parishioner of St. George’s church on nearby East 16th Street. In its rst decades, the building, which has sculptural reliefs of babies on its facade between its fth and sixth oors, was known as the Lying-in Hospital and was one of the main places in the city for women to give birth. A Rutherford Place two-bedroom rental in mid-May was asking $12,000 a month, according to StreetEasy; the priciest two-bedroom condo could be had for about $3 million.

STUYVESANT SQUARE

Peter Gerard Stuyvesant, a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch director-general of New Netherland, owned an estate that covered most of what is now Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village today. In 1836, as part of an ongoing effort to slice up and sell off his holdings, Stuyvesant donated the land for Stuyvesant Square, a verdant nearly four-acre, ironfence-ringed spread split into two sections, courtesy of Second Avenue. (The divided-in-half look suggests what Gramercy Park and Washington Square Park might look like if plans to cut roads through them had come to pass.) Originally the two-block stretch along the park’s easternmost ank was Livingston Place, named for Stuyvesant’s mother, Margaret Livingston. But in 1954 city of cials renamed the short street for Nathan Perlman, a Polish immigrant, lawyer and Republican Congressman who represented the city on Capitol Hill from 1920 to 1927. Perlman, who was also a Beth Israel vice president, died in 1952 at his hospital.

318 E. 15TH ST.

The New York In rmary, a hospital founded in 1853 by the country’s rst licensed woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, set up shop on the north side of East 15th Street in 1875. Brownstones once located across the street, including at No. 318, seem to have also had In rmary functions. But in the mid-1960s, the institution razed a line of the buildings in order to construct the 12-story, white-brick apartment house standing at the address today. Offering housing to hospital workers, No. 318 was developed under the Mitchell-Lama program, through which developers could obtain low-interest loans and property tax breaks in exchange for keeping rents low. But landlords (which later included New York University through a merger) paid off the mortgage in 1997, allowing No. 318 to exit the program for good. In 2008, developer Arun Bhatia snapped up the 141-unit property for $56 million and borrowed $92 million in 2017 for redevelopment. He then sold No. 318 in 2022 to the New School for $14.5 million, according to the city register. Now called Stuyvesant Park, No. 318 houses about 640 mostly rst-year students, who can enjoy amenities like music practice rooms, art studios and a TV lounge.

327 E. 17TH ST.

Beth Israel’s presence is not always towering but sometimes modest, like with this six-story skinny brick site that played a role in a notable controversy. The four-story townhouse that previously stood there was home to Czech composer Antonin Dvorak and his family from 1892 to 1895; a plaque says Dvorak’s New York years left him “happily inspired by the freedom of American life.” In 1989, Beth Israel purchased the Dvorak property for about $1 million, according to the city register, and announced plans to open a center for AIDS hospice care in its place. In early 1991, the city conferred protective landmark status on No. 327, but in an extremely unusual move, the City Council voted to overturn the designation a few months later. Some council members who supported the reversal suggested saving lives was more important than buildings. For its part, Beth Israel said renovations would cost $6 million versus $5 million to build anew, according to news reports from the time. Today, the structure at No. 327 is home to the 28-bed Mapplethorpe House, named for photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1987 of AIDS. But Dvorak lives on, courtesy of a green-granite statue in Stuyvesant Square that was relocated from Lincoln Center in 1997. And his old block has been renamed Dvorak Place.

301 FIRST AVE.

345 E. 15TH ST.

This striking ve-story Beaux-Arts edi ce, from architect C. B. J. Snyder, has been a place to learn since it was built in 1907 on a city-owned 21-lot site. It was most famously home to Stuyvesant High School, the selective secondary school considered among the city’s best. But Stuyvesant didn’t start requiring its well-known tough entrance exams until 1920, according to a Landmarks Preservation Commission report on the protected property. It also did not allow girls until 1969. The high school departed in 1992 for a newer and larger facility on Chambers Street in Battery Park City. But No. 345, a 171,000-square-foot through-block site, remains an educational hub. The High School for Health Professions, the Institute for Collaborative Education and a special-education facility are based there today, though “Stuyvesant High School” remains inscribed over the entrance on East 16th Street.

Mount Sinai Beth Israel, which had 700 beds at the Stuyvesant Square campus at its peak, controls the entire block between East 16th and East 17th streets west of First Avenue, as well as other buildings nearby. But when it arrived in 1929 from the Lower East Side, the hospital, which catered to Russian Jewish immigrants, had a much smaller footprint, concentrated in an elegant tan-brick structure on the block’s westernmost side. At 13 stories, it was the tallest hospital in the world when it opened, according to its of cial history. The prewar structure, known as the Dazian Building, seems like the kind of medical facility developers love to convert. And a historic former Beth Israel site at 305 Second Ave. got similar treatment years ago. But most of the rest of the hospital’s current campus is awash in generally less-desirable Space Age-era architecture. Many of the half-dozen interconnected structures came about through a 10-year, $30 million expansion effort (the equivalent of $280 million today) in the 1950s and 1960s. They include Karpas Pavilion, an aqua-paneled building on East 16th Street completed in 1960 as housing for nursing students; Baird Hall, a 20-story beige offering from 1963 that also offered housing for the teaching hospital; and Linsky Pavilion, a circular 12-story site at No. 281 that is perhaps the most-recognizable structure. Opening a few years after the similarly rounded Guggenheim Museum in 1966, Linsky, named for the founder of Swingline Staples, was designed by Sid Schuman and Sam Lichtenstein, the S and L of the high-visibility rm known as SLCE Architects today.

Constructed in 1969 for medical students so they could be an easy walk away from their training grounds, the 24-story tower here was vacated as part of an earlier effort at downsizing by Mount Sinai after its 2013 merger with Beth Israel; Mount Sinai of oaded No. 301 in 2017 for $46.5 million, records show. The buyer, California-based CIM Group, ipped it two years later for $81 million to GFP Real Estate and Meadow Partners, which carved the high-pro le corner site into a pair of commercial condos, one containing a parking garage and the other the tower’s 185 apartments. The GFP team then sold the residences in 2020 to the New School for $65.4 million. The college, whose red banners utter on the facade, opened up a 630-student dorm in the high-rise the following year. No. 301’s zoning wouldn’t allow a 24-story structure today, which likely prompted the owners to convert and not demolish. In its medical dorm days, No. 301 was called Sylvia and Charles Gilman Hall. Sylvia Gilman’s grandfather was Moses Phillips, a Polish immigrant and pushcart shirt vendor whose business grew into the apparel behemoth Phillips-Van Heusen. Moses Phillips was also one of 40 people in 1889 to found a medical clinic on the Lower East Side, on now-gone Birmingham Street, that eventually evolved into Beth Israel hospital.

C. J. Hughes

305 SECOND AVE.

281 FIRST AVE.

BUCK ENNIS, GOOGLE MAPS

Tough House primary may oust an incumbent

Westchester County Executive George Latimer is a known quantity, reliably liberal on most issues and dif cult to undercut

The most competitive — and bitter — House Democratic primary in America is in the home stretch.

George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, had banked at least $3 million for his race against Congressman Jamaal Bowman. Latimer is also bene ting from millions in spending from the American Israel Public A airs Committee as well as Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel PAC that spends heavily in Democratic primaries, usually against progressives. ere hasn’t been any reliable independent polling in the primary, which will be decided on June 25, but observers agree that Bowman is in danger of losing.

hostages. e war, since October, has killed about 35,000 Gazans and ignited mass protests in the U.S. — but also spurred Jewish voters in New York to rally around pro-Israel candidates like Latimer.

Even without Israel, Latimer would be a tough opponent for Bowman because he’s run and won so much in Westchester before. e 16th Congressional District covers a small portion of the northern Bronx and Westchester’s southern area from Yonkers to Tarrytown.

Israel, as an issue, has naturally gotten the most attention and it’s the reason Latimer, traditionally a middling fundraiser, arrives with such a cash advantage — he had, as of the end of March, about double Bowman’s haul — and an ability to dominate the airwaves. Latimer is against conditioning military aid to Israel and has resisted criticizing the war in Gaza, which was launched after Hamas killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians and took several hundred

Unlike candidates in other primaries AIPAC has supported, Latimer is more like an incumbent than an insurgent. He rst was elected Westchester County executive in 2017, defeating Republican Rob Astorino, and he was a state senator and assemblyman before then. Bowman has sought to portray Latimer as too tied to right-wing donors to represent the district — Trump supporters have cut large checks to Latimer’s campaign since he’s running against a close ally of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — but he’s a known quantity, reliably liberal on most issues and dicult to undercut.

Bowman can still win. He needs to run up large margins in the Black and Latino working-class areas of the district and try to hold his own among white voters. Four years ago, Bowman was able to do this when ousted Eliot Engel, the veteran congressman. at race, for Bowman, might have been easier than this one because Engel was under re for living in Maryland during the pandemic. Bowman could assail him as an out-oftouch representative, just as AOC targeted Joe Crowley for raising his family in Virginia.

Effectively campaigning

Latimer is not, like Engel, a lax campaigner. He’s not well-known in the Bronx portion of the district, but he’s a household name everywhere else. As Westchester County executive, he can perform his government duties while e ectively campaigning; if he shows up at a ribbon-cutting in Yonkers or Scarsdale, he’s putting in an appearance that can help him with

voters, even if he’s not explicitly holding a campaign event. Latimer, as a white man, must endure criticism that he’s trying to drive out a Black representative at the behest of wealthy, reactionary donors. And Bowman has been in the hot seat for pulling a re alarm in the Capitol building during a vote and later getting censured — Bowman said it was an accident — as well as writing blog posts, more than a decade ago, that appeared to give credence to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Earlier this month, it was also revealed his YouTube page was following con-

spiracy accounts. And he had to apologize, not long ago, for praising Norman Finkelstein, an anti-Israel scholar, at a panel discussion.

Is this enough to doom Bowman? Maybe. e Working Families Party has gone into overdrive to save him and he still has the support of some large unions, including 1199 SEIU. He won’t go down without a ght. But watch Westchester and the Bronx on June 25. It’s going to be a fascinating Election Day.

Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.

Rat pack: New York will host rodent- ghting summit

yB Nick Garber

Mayor Eric Adams, who has made his hatred of rats a central talking point, said May 15 that New York City will host a rst-ofits kind nationwide summit devoted to ghting rodent infestations.

e National Urban Rat Summit will be held Sept. 18 and 19 as a partnership between the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University, the mayor’s o ce said. It aims to advance solutions to rodent mitiga-

and appointing a “rat czar,” Kathleen Corradi, to coordinate rodent mitigation among agencies.

“ e best way to defeat our enemy is to know our enemy,” Adams said in a statement. “ at’s why we’re holding this inaugural summit, to bring experts and leaders from across the country together to better understand urban rats and how to manage their populations.”

A decline within this year

“The best way to defeat our enemy is to know our enemy.”

Mayor Eric Adams

tion by bringing together experts, including academic researchers and municipal pest control managers, the city said.

Rat- ghting has been one of the signature quality-of-life issues of Adams’ mayoralty, after rodent complaints surged during the pandemic. His e orts have included taking steps to require all trash to be stored in containers,

ere are signs that the administration’s approach is working: about 8,500 rat sightings have been reported to 311 this year, down from 8,900 through the same period last year, according to city data. ere has been a bigger 55% decline in the section of Harlem where the city began experimenting with containerized garbage collection last year for residences and schools.

Corradi said in a statement that “there is surprisingly limited research on urban rats and their management,” a knowledge gap that the summit aims to ll in.

Participants are set to include experts from Seattle, Boston and New Orleans, plus other “promi-

nent rat researchers,” the mayor’s o ce said. e city did not say where the conference would be held.

Under Adams, all of the city’s businesses have had to store their trash in containers since March.

A long-held dream of getting all

residential trash o the sidewalk now seems within reach, after the administration released a plan in February spelling out how all buildings could store trash in either small wheeled bins or large on-street containers.

A timeframe for that citywide

plan will be set based on the results for a pilot e ort planned for West Harlem starting in 2025. Experts have said depriving rats of easy-to-reach food sources like garbage is the most straightforward way to reduce their presence in cities.

Ross Barkan

Westchester County executive George Latimer (left) stands a strong chance of defeating progressive Congressman Jamaal Bowman (right) in the June 25 Democratic primary, writes columnist Ross Barkan. BLOOMBERG

Mayor Eric Adams, who has pushed trash containerization rules as a method of ghting rats, announced the city would host a rst-of-itskind Urban Rat Summit this year. | ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

New York Court of Appeals decision gives controversial Seaport tower the go-ahead after multiyear legal battle

yB Eddie Small

A multiyear legal battle against a controversial tower planned for the South Street Seaport has concluded with a ruling that should make the developer and the city happy.

e New York Court of Appeals has cleared the way for Howard Hughes Holdings’ tower planned for 250 Water St. to move forward, denying a motion from the com-

“Today’s

Court of Appeals is the highest court in the state, this should put an end to the case.

“For too long, the lot at 250 Water St. has been an underutilized part of the Seaport,” Howard Hughes CEO David O’Reilly said in a statement. “Today’s (May 21) decision marks a major win for Lower Manhattan and the city and paves the way for Seaport Entertainment Group to begin construction on a vibrant, mixed-use project that will be a signi cant contribution to the neighborhood.”

(May 21) decision marks a major win for Lower Manhattan and the city and paves the way for Seaport Entertainment Group to begin construction on a vibrant, mixed-use project that will be a signi cant contribution to the neighborhood.”

Howard Hughes CEO David O’Reilly

munity group South Street Seaport Coalition to appeal a prior ruling that upheld a key approval for the project. Given that the

Howard Hughes has been trying to build a 27-story mixed-use tower at 250 Water St. with roughly 400 apartments for years, but the project has faced erce community pushback for about as long. is lawsuit dates back to July 2022 and claimed that the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission was improperly inuenced when approving the project by planned community

bene ts from Howard Hughes, such as a ordable housing and renovating the South Street Seaport Museum. e commission had made several prior rulings that a project of this scale at 250 Water St. was inappropriate for the neighborhood, according to the suit.

Ruled in favor

Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in favor of the coalition in January 2023, but the appellate division of New York state Supreme Court unanimously overturned his decision in June. e Court of Appeals has now e ectively upheld this decision.

A spokesperson for the Landmarks Preservation Commission said the agency was pleased with the ruling, which puts an end to the legal challenge.

e coalition released a statement following the Court of Appeals’ ruling reiterating the accusations in its original lawsuit and saying that the “new normal” for doing business in the city “enables developers to engage in backroom dealings with City Hall while the

courts look the other way.” e group also blasted the decision as a bad precedent for future preservationist battles in historic districts.

Another potential remaining hurdle to the project was the completion deadline for developments using the state’s now-expired 421a a ordable housing tax break. However, given that the state extended this deadline to 2031 as part of the housing package in its budget, this issue has been taken

care of as well, according to Howard Hughes Holdings. e project will include 100 affordable units for households earning between 40% and 120% of the area median income, or between about $56,000 and $168,000 for a family of three. Most of the units will be for households earning 40%, according to a spokesman for the developer. e tower will include a 5-story base with commercial, retail and community space as well.

A rendering of 250 Water St.| HOWARD HUGHES HOLDINGS/SOM

Wanted: Community board members ready to move past a 1960s mindset

The time has come for New York City’s community board members to tackle serious challenges around housing and business regulation or step aside to make way for leaders who don’t o er a hardline “no” to any suggestion of change.

Many of the city’s 59 community boards have so far o ered a buzzsaw of opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ common-sense and much-needed City of Yes initiatives and are expected to make a big stink in the coming weeks about the plan’s third component, which would relax zoning rules to permit new residential construction across the city.

Board members must be willing to approach these proposals with an open mind and an appreciation of the severity of the problem. Fewer than 5% of city apartments were a ordable for the average worker last year, according to a new report by StreetEasy and Tech:NYC, and new housing development has slowed to a glacial pace.

ose responsible for appointing the boards, which for years have been notorious for an anti-development mindset,

New

On March 27, 2023, Crain’s New York Business reported that “New York holds onto its spot as the world’s nancial capital” based upon the 33rd edition of the Global Financial Centres Index. e GFCI provides evaluations of future competitiveness and rankings for 120 nancial centers around the world. According to the GFCI 33, New York leads the index, with London second, Singapore third, and Hong Kong fourth. Similarly, the GFCI 33 indicated that Chicago and Boston joined New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the world’s top 10. New York also retained its leading position in the FinTech ranking, followed by San Francisco, London, and Shenzhen with Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Shanghai, Singapore, and Washington rounding out the top 10 for FinTech.

should follow the lead of Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, who has been screening out candidates who re exively oppose adding housing.

Levine appoints half of the volunteer members of the borough’s 12 community boards — and starting last year, he added a new question about housing to the boards’ application. Two years in, he said the effort is showing promise: 81% of 111 new

members ranked housing as either their rst or second priority.

ere’s still a lot of work to do. Most community boards voted against the latest phase of the City of Yes plan, which includes business-related updates to the city’s 1961 zoning rules, in a public review that began last fall, showing staunch opposition to more mixing of residential and commercial activities. Among other

changes, the rules would allow “clean” manufacturing in commercial districts, micro-distribution centers in storefronts and permit dancing in venues where music and standup comedy are already allowed.

e plan enjoys support from business improvement districts, chambers of commerce, and other industry groups like the New York City Hospitality Alliance and the Real Estate Board of New York.

Despite the intransigence of community boards, which wield in uence over lawmakers but ultimately do not have legislative power, the City Council is expected to approve most elements of the plan to loosen zoning rules that discourage business growth, with a few exceptions to pacify outer-borough lawmakers. e ght is likely to pale in comparison, though, to the battle later this year over proposed changes to zoning for housing.

at’s all the more reason for civic-minded New Yorkers who aren’t content to freeze in place a 1960s vision of the city to step up and serve on community boards.

must update its commercial code to address emerging technologies

in commerce and nance. In the U.S., for instance, in July 2022, the Uniform Law Commission and the American Law Institute promulgated the Emerging Technologies amendments (Model UCC Amendments) to the Uniform Commercial Code or UCC. As of today, close to two dozen states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Model UCC Amendments, with bills to enact the Model UCC Amendments pending in other states.

However, New York is not one of those states. e New York UCC has not been updated since 2014. New York now nds itself, with other jurisdictions adopted in the Model UCC Amendments, in a di cult position. New York law is becoming increasingly outdated and ill-suited to many modern nancial transactions.

signed speci cally to mesh with New York’s electronic transactions law and New York policies in favor of the free negotiability of certain payment rights.

New York commercial and nancial law has long been favored by those conducting business transactions and their lawyers because of New York’s robust respect for freedom of contract and strong protections for the negotiability of commercial instruments. is has made New York the preferred U.S. jurisdiction for paper-based commercial, nancial and other business transactions. Unfortunately, the same is not yet true for transactions involving digital assets such as electronic payment rights, tokenized assets, and non-fungible tokens.

pants decide whether to choose New York as the governing law and the jurisdiction to resolve disputes and whether businesses will decide to locate to New York.

A lot has changed since March 2023. Since that time New York’s position as the world’s nancial capital has been threatened by many of the countries and states identi ed in the GFCI 33. Among the most important changes is that those countries and U.S. states have adopted new laws designed to promote technology

To retain its preeminent position, New York must act quickly to adopt the New York Emerging Technologies UCC Amendments proposed by New York Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal in the New York Senate (S.7244-A) before the legislative session ends in June. e New York Emerging Technologies UCC Amendments are a tailored version of the Model UCC Amendments de-

Enactment of the New York Emerging Technologies UCC Amendments will promote and encourage technological and commercial advances that decrease transactional costs and enhance the e ciency, certainty and security of commercial and nancial transactions governed by the New York UCC. e importance of these improvements to the New York UCC cannot be overstated. Technological and commercial advances that decrease transactional costs and enhance the e ciency, certainty and security of commercial and nancial transactions are major factors that are considered when market partici-

Every time another state adopts the Model UCC Amendments, the more likely New York risks that market participants will prefer one of those states for transactions involving digital assets. Once that business is lost to other states, it will become increasingly di cult to get it back.

Enactment of the New York Emerging Technologies UCC Amendments will also help persuade multinational and international market participants to choose New York law over the law of countries such as England, which are rapidly reforming their commercial laws to accommodate emerging technologies and electronic transactions. New York must act expeditiously to preserve and strengthen its attractiveness to multinational and international businesses.

York

Community board members need to approach City of Yes proposals with an open mind. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Lorraine McGowen is co-chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Digital Technology Task Force.

The state must act quickly to adopt the New York Emerging Technologies UCC Amendments to retain its preeminent position on the global stage, writes Lorraine McGowen. | BLOOMBERG

PERSONAL VIEW

National telehealth standards would improve outcomes for patients, providers across the board

In many cases telehealth has quickened and improved the delivery of healthcare services, such as consultation, patient triage, treatment, and education. But depending on where you live, con icts between federal and state telehealth regulations can add complexity and slow the process considerably.

ink of it like a highway system. Federal laws set the speed limits and basic safety standards. States can then set their own speed limits within the federal guidelines, or add speci c rules like mandatory rest stops within their borders. Some state regulations are stricter than federal guidelines, such as with privacy protections and di ering reimbursement structures and rates.

how telehealth services are implemented, accessed, and reimbursed. ese di erences can complicate matters for providers serving patients in multiple states and highlight the need for a standardized approach to telehealth regulation. Every state has di erent rules, and they change constantly.

◗ Licensing requirements: Some states require healthcare providers to be licensed in the state where the patient is located at the time of the telehealth service. Others participate in interstate compacts like the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, which facilitates the licensing process across state lines but does not uniformly cover all states.

◗ Types of services covered: States di er in the types of telehealth services they cover. For example, some may allow a broad range of services, including mental health treatments, while others might restrict telehealth to certain types of medical consultations or follow-up visits.

◗ Consent requirements: e requirements for obtaining patient consent for telehealth services can vary. Some states require written consent, while others are satis ed with verbal consent or have speci c guidelines on how consent must be documented.

◗ Patient privacy and data security: States have their own regulations concerning patient data privacy and security during telehealth sessions, which can in uence the technology platforms that providers can use.

◗ Increased provider pool — with clear, consistent rules, providers would be more comfortable o ering telehealth services across state lines. is would expand the pool of quali ed healthcare professionals available to patients. Given the shortage of quali ed professionals in many parts of the country, states would be wise to increase access to quali ed healthcare professionals within their borders.

◗ Maintaining safety — national standards can help ensure consistent quality and safety of care for all telehealth patients. is could involve establishing baseline requirements for technology, provider quali cations, and patient data security.

Currently, telehealth regulations are a patchwork across states, causing confusion for both patients and providers. is limits patient choice and access to quali ed care.

ese are all reasons why we need uniform national telehealth standards to ensure the health and safety of patients and consistent, equitable telehealth services across all states.

ese can be quite signi cant, a ecting

PERSONAL VIEW

◗ Reimbursement policies: ere is variability in how telehealth services are reimbursed by Medicaid and private insurers. Because Medicaid programs are state-speci c, each state can determine what type of telehealth services are reimbursed, and for what amounts. Some states have parity laws that require insurers to reimburse telehealth services at the same rates as in-person services,while others may not mandate such parity, leading to di erent reimbursement rates and coverage limitations.

National uniformity in telehealth standards would help in streamlining regulations, simplifying the licensing process for providers, and ensuring that all patients receive the same standard of care regardless of their location. Here are some of the main bene ts:

◗ Breaking down barriers — streamlined national standards would remove unnecessary barriers for patients seeking telehealth services. is could be particularly bene cial for those in rural areas or with limited mobility.

◗ Standardizing best practices — nationally recognized best practices for telehealth would raise the bar for quality of care across the board. is bene ts patients by ensuring they receive safe and e ective telehealth services.

◗ Improved outcomes — standardized telehealth regulations can lead to better patient outcomes by promoting wider access to quali ed healthcare professionals and fostering a culture of quality and safety. For patients to be successful with telemedicine, it needs to be used to overcome the many systemic, geographic, and social barriers that limit access to healthcare.

Big Apple’s commercial real estate rot threatens banks

The commercial real estate sector’s struggles are threatening to spread.

Regional and community banks, the primary lenders to commercial real estate borrowers, face a sustained period of deep losses on problematic commercial real estate loans, potentially reaching hundreds of billions of dollars.

is could lead to a string of bank failures as commercial real estate price declines deepen and loans come due this year and next. Structurally weak demand for ofce properties, along with a prolonged period of high interest rates, pose potentially insurmountable headwinds for the entire commercial real estate market.

Small and mid-sized banks need to start addressing the problem now or face a potentially existential crisis. e risk in the o ce market is not evenly distributed. New and renovated trophy o ce buildings in prime locations are in great shape, with low vacancies, strong tenant demand and rent growth. But these towers don’t represent most of the o ce stock in major cities.

assets, or take the keys.

In New York City, remote and hybrid work are the new norm, even if some large tech and nancial companies have publicly announced plans to curtail workplace exibility. Labor markets are tight, and with companies eager to retain talent, CEOs are disinclined to force workers back to the o ce.

Kurt Reiman is a senior economist at e Conference Board, a non-pro t research organization at the intersection of business performance and societal advancement.

e older class B and C buildings are struggling with tenant ight, higher operational costs, record-high vacancy rates, and downward pressure on rents. ese are the buildings that are forcing banks to reevaluate loan terms, shed

Kastle’s “Back-to-Work” Barometer tracks employee card swipes in major metro areas. It shows New York City o ce workers’ return rate plateauing at about 50% of pre-pandemic activity. e o ce vacancy rate for Manhattan clocked in at 23.4% in the rst quarter of 2024, nearly twice the historical average of 12.7%, according to the real estate rm Cushman & Wake eld.

Companies have a choice: Either lower their real estate expenditures by reducing square footage or draw their employees back to the o ce by upgrading the experience there—at a similar or higher price per square foot. Most rms face higher operating costs and so are looking for ways to economize on o ce space. However, this process takes time: e average lease term for Class A properties in Manhattan is roughly 10 years, so many tenants are locked in. But what might be a smart nancial decision for a company complicates an al-

ready di cult situation for property managers, bank lenders, and the broader commercial real estate market. ey face sharply higher borrowing costs due to the recent interest rate increases and rise in long-term bond yields.

ose borrowing costs don’t appear likely to come down soon: e Fed has pushed back rate cut expectations and is steadily reducing its balance sheet, lifting its thumb o long-term interest rates. Real estate crises since the 1980s eventually resolved with the help of structurally lower interest rates. Not this time. Some property owners are converting class B/C o ce towers to residential, but the vast majority of properties are either unsuitable or uneconomical. Neither development—weak o ceproperty demand and higher interest rates—is a surprise. Still, the paucity of regional and community banks that have lifted commercial real estate loan delinquencies and charge-o s is shocking. ese same banks have also done little to lift allowances for future loan losses.

e largest banks already started recognizing higher CRE losses, but they’re not the core of the problem given their diversied lending businesses and strong capital cushions. It’s the smaller banks with greater exposure to commercial real estate that face a “trainwreckoning.”

is doesn’t mean that a full-blown nancial system outage is on the horizon. Some banks will fail, others will muddle through. Companies should prepare for an ex-

tended period of tight lending standards and elevated borrowing costs, as banks come to terms with their commercial real estate problems’ severity. Insu cient liquidity is a danger and risk for all when banks raise charge-o s and recognize problem loans. Prudent corporate managers extend their debts’ maturities and add a cash liquidity bu er before the storm. While expensive, such measures can mean survival. Some companies will be able to take advantage of the adverse markets while others are scrambling to survive. e factors separating the nancial institutions that weather this storm are how quickly they reckon with it and their exposure. It is already too late for banks with concentrated exposures that haven’t made the necessary provisions, but others can still act.

Brandon M. Welch is the founder and CEO of Doxy. me, a telemedicine software company.

Small and midsize banks face a potential existential crisis if they don’t address their commercial real estate exposure now, writes Kurt Reiman, senior economist at The Conference Board. | BUCK ENNIS

To place your listing, visit www.crainsnewyork.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

Lee & Associates NYC

Lee & Associates NYC appointed Peter Braus as president, succeeding James Wacht, who will remain as managing principal. Braus has over 25 years of experience in real estate ownership and brokerage. He played a critical role in some of the city’s most notable transactions, including the $18.2 million sale of the Banking Hall at 108 Leonard St. to Jack Shainman Gallery & City Winery’s 32,000-squarefoot agship location at Pier 57, which was recognized as REBNY’s Retail Deal of the Year in 2020.

ENGINEERING

Dewberry

RECRUITING

The Bachrach Group

Diane Amato joins The Bachrach Group (TBG), a national recruiting rm headquartered in New York City celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, as their Practice Director of Legal Services in NYC. With 25+ years of law rm experience and 10+ years in legal recruiting, she brings a wealth of expertise to TBG. Formerly VP of Legal Staf ng, and expert in full desk management, Diane ensures exceptional results.

Dewberry welcomes Khan Rahman, Ph.D., PE, SE, PMP, as vice president and bridge department manager in its New York City of ce. Rahman brings over 35 years of experience in project and risk management in structural and civil engineering. He has managed large infrastructure projects involving bridges, buildings, and complex structures. In his new role, Rahman will oversee and grow the rm’s bridge group in NYC, delivering comprehensive engineering services and solutions to enable clients to meet project goals.

TRANSPORTATION

New York & Atlantic Railway

Anacostia Rail Holdings (ARH) has named Marlon Taylor President of its New York & Atlantic Railway (NYA) based in Glendale, NY. Taylor began his railroading career at ARH-owned Paci c Harbor Line in 1999 and was most recently VP at NYA. He serves several industry and community groups, including the Safety & Operations Management Committee of the Association of American Railroads, as President of the Railroads of NY, and is on the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Leadership Council

Networking / Educational Events / Seminars Conferences / Fundraisers / Galas Events of Interest to the Business Community

IN MEMORIAM

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Morgan Lewis mourns the passing of our partner, friend, and mentor Jonathan D. Morris, deputy leader of our rm’s global corporate and business transactions practice. Jon spent his entire career in our rm’s New York of ce and served on the Advisory Board and as a member of the Diversity and Recruiting committees. An important part of his practice, Jon devoted many hours to representing pro bono clients and was involved in the Jewish youth organization Moving Traditions.

Landmarked Home Depot building to get $23M makeover

Aaron Elstein

e landmarked building that houses the Home Depot in the Flatiron District is getting a revamp.

Williams Equities is investing $23 million, or $40 per square foot,

terrace, according to a report May 15 from bond-rating rm KBRA.

A spokesperson for Williams said: “We are committed to further elevating 28-40 West 23rd Street to ensure exceptional experiences with the mindset to meet the desires of today’s tenants and into the future.”

“We are committed to further elevating 28-40 West 23rd Street to ensure exceptional experiences with the mindset to meet the desires of today’s tenants and into the future.”

spokesperson for Williams Equities

to renovate the fourth, fth and six oors of 28-40 W. 23rd St., two adjoining buildings that date back to the 19th century. Additional funding will be committed to tailoring o ce space to tenant speci cations.

Renovation plans include an expanded atrium and a new rooftop

e Home Depot location that opened in 2004 at street level will be una ected; its lease for 118,000 square feet continues through 2036.

e retailer pays a base rent of $64 per square foot, KBRA said, below the market rate of $75.

Williams is renovating the building after AT&T’s lease for 220,000 square feet expired in March. Prior to AT&T’s exit, the building was 100% leased.

Adjoining properties

e property’s largest tenant, Estee Lauder subsidiary Aramis, leases 240,000 square feet at $82

per square foot, below the market rate of $92. Its lease expires in 2028. e company initially subleased 66,000 square feet of space in 2012 but has since signed a direct lease and expanded its space four times, KBRA said.

e third tenant, nancial-technology company Ramp, leases 66,000 square feet for its corporate headquarters with a lease expiring in 2029. Its rent is $80 per square foot.

Brooklyn-based landscaping

In its report, KBRA noted the building faces “concentrated rollover risk” around the time its new $155 million mortgage comes due. The five-year loan carries a 6.1% interest rate and replaces an older $140 million mortgage with a 3.9% rate. A $13 million down payment was put up by Williams Equities, an investment firm founded in 1926 that holds interests in 12 New York office buildings each with

more than 3 million square feet. e address 28-40 W. 23rd consists of two adjoining properties holding 600,000 square feet, one 6 stories high, and the other 12. e building at 28 W. 23rd was built as a department store in 1878 and features a white cast-iron exterior façade, custom decorative pillars, and loft-style oor to ceiling windows. e property at 40 W. 23rd was built a little later and has a stone facade.

rm wins $2 million contract with city despite recent fraud conviction

Julianne Cuba

An embattled, Brooklyn-based landscaping company with a recent criminal conviction has been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract with the city for its tree-pruning services, according to a notice that appeared in the city register May 17.

e Parks Department inked the $2 million contract with Dragonetti Bros. Landscaping to conduct invasive species removal citywide, according to the notice, which comes two years after the rm’s bigwigs — Vito and Nicholas Dragonetti — were convicted of insurance fraud for misclassifying employees who were eligible for workers’ compensation insurance in order to avoid paying more than $1 million in premiums.

In October 2022 the siblings pleaded guilty to intentionally misclassifying 217 workers with heavy-duty and dangerous jobs, including laborers, foremen and equipment operators, as orists, o ce workers and sales representatives, according to the indictment announced at the time by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the city’s Department of Investigation.

As a result, the company paid $1.2 million in restitution and was prohibited from doing business with certain city agencies — excluding the Parks Department. e troubled tree-trimming rm,

which has done work for the city since 1998, also agreed to a monitorship in order to ensure it remains in compliance with various city business integrity requirements as well as to move the company to a new facility not owned by Dragonetti Bros. or its a liates.

Selection defended

Meghan Lalor, a spokeswoman for the Parks Department, de-

fended Dragonetti’s selection and said the company was awarded the contract based on its “extensive experience” in the eld. She added that post-legal troubles, the company has taken measures to restore its business integrity, including by placing the two Dragonetti owners’ interests in a blind trust and participating in a monitorship agreement with the Department of Investigation.

It’s not the rst time the city’s relationship with Dragonetti

Bros. has been questioned. e Parks Department came under re last year for awarding the company $40 million in contracts for various tree-pruning services. And just a few months later, Dragonetti Bros. took the city to court over what the rm said at the time was an “arbitrary” and “without rational basis” rejection of one of its longtime contracts. e company led a complaint in August against the Parks Department alleging that it was unfairly passed

The company paid $1.2 million in restitution and was prohibited from doing business with certain city agencies — excluding the Parks Department.

over for more than $22 million worth of contracts in favor of another landscaper.

In a response to Crain’s, however, an unnamed representative from Dragonetti Bros. Landscaping said that it has never been dropped from a tree-pruning contract, and it has taken all necessary measures to rehabilitate its business. e company declined to comment on the litigation it initiated against the city last year but said it has been “e ectively discontinued.” e status of the lawsuit remains unclear. e company did not respond to follow-up questions, and its lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

Neither the Parks Department nor the city’s Law Department responded to a request for comment about the litigation or its status.

Williams Equities will renovate the fourth, fth and sixth oors of the Home Depot building in the Flatiron District. WILLIAMS EQUITIES

Dragonetti Bros.’ Brooklyn headquarters | GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Some city planning of cials question plan for a new 23-story of ce tower on the Williamsburg waterfront

yB Julianne Cuba

Plans for a 23-story o ce tower in Williamsburg were under examination this week as City Planning Commission o cials questioned during a public hearing whether introducing even more o ces into an already beleaguered market is the best use of a prime waterfront parcel currently zoned for manufacturing.

A limited liability company called 500 Kent purchased the site at 500 Kent Ave. from Con Edison for $50 million in 2019, city records show. e energy company

Crain’s reported in 2016 that the city would not rezone the area to allow for condo development, and Mayor Eric Adams — then Brooklyn borough president — said at the time that “this site is going to stay industrial.”

Seeking a special permit

“Our client still believes there is a market for this. We’re several years away from the project being built.”

operated power plants there until shuttering them in 1999; they were demolished a decade later.

In 2014, under the supervision of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Con Ed remediated the land, which is bounded by Division Avenue to its north, Wallabout Channel to its west and the edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard to its south.

e owner of the property, which reportedly includes a partnership with developer Hampshire Properties, together with the United Jewish Organization — led by Rabbi David Niederman as its executive director — want to rezone the nearly 2.7-acre site, now partially vacant and a parking lot for school buses, to allow for commercial and retail use and are proposing to build a tower with about 555,000 square feet of o ce space and roughly 20,700 square feet of retail, along with about 23,000 square feet of public waterfront access. e co-applicants are also seeking a special permit to facilitate the construction of a 234-spot public parking garage, according to the city ling.

Some members of the City Planning Commission appear to be dubious of the proposed transformation.

“ is does not contemplate any manufacturing — this is not a resource we’re going to get back. We

have seen that o ce space has not been occupied in this area, including along the waterfront and further up, in the way that one anticipated pre-Covid,” Commissioner Gail Benjamin said during the public hearing on the application May 15. e applicant, meanwhile, is so far unwavering in its plans.

“Our client still believes there is a market for this,” said Raymond

Levin of Manhattan-based law rm Herrick, Feinstein LLP during the hearing, referencing recent leases signed in Two Trees’ Domino Park, which is nearby, and in Dumbo. “We’re several years away from the project being built.”

Rejection recommended

Community Board 2 voted in favor of the application in March.

But Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso recommended last month that the city reject the proposal, saying in his memo that “this development pattern has foreclosed any future for manufacturing jobs along Brooklyn’s former working waterfront.” e Department of City Planning has not yet set a date for a vote on the project, but it will likely be in the next month or two.

Developer Joel Schwartz eyes Downtown Brooklyn for new 14-story, 117-unit project on parking lot site

yB C. J. Hughes

A builder known for smaller-scale projects has something larger in mind in Downtown Brooklyn.

Joel Schwartz is seeking to develop a 14-story, 117-unit mixeduse project at 236 Gold St., a longtime parking lot near Flatbush Avenue, according to a ling that appeared May 14 at the Department of City Planning. irty of the units at the presumably rental project, near Concord Street and a Brooklyn-Queens Expressway overpass, would be income-restricted apartments o ered at below-market rents, the ling says.

To move forward, Schwartz wants the city to rezone the weedy site, which currently is part of a district that allows only low-slung residential buildings, to allow for a taller structure that has apartments and retail space, the ling indicates.

e developer also wants planning o cials to waive a parking requirement for the narrow 20-by54-foot lot.

Schwartz, who did not return a phone message left at his Williamsburg-based company, Southside

Units, is the latest developer to attempt a transformation of Gold Street, a thoroughfare near the Brooklyn Navy Yard that was once checkered with parking lots.

Other projects

Opening in 2021 on the same side of the block was 260 Gold St., a gray-toned 13-story offering from developer Solomon Feder that has 286 studios to three-bedrooms. Similarly, about a decade ago, Lalezarian Properties put the finishing touches on Bklyn Gold, a massive two-building rental complex across the street. The complex’s 14-story No. 257 portion features 372 apartments, while the 12-story No. 277 side has 133 homes. (A self-storage facility separates the two sections.)

A Bklyn Gold studio was available on May 15 for around $3,400 per month.

In 2022, Schwartz picked up 236 Gold, which appears to have been vacant since the street was widened in the urban-renewal-centric 1960s, for $3.7 million, according to the city register.

Schwartz, an active developer

for at least two decades, is no stranger to boutique-style, midblock projects. In 2023, he unveiled 596 Metropolitan Ave., a 6-story, 12-unit rental in Williamsburg with a mix of market-rate and a ordable units. And he’s current-

ly at work on nearby 352 Meeker Ave., a 7-story, 27-unit mid-rise on a property that once contained a kitchen-supply store, building permits show.

e developer has been known to sell apartment buildings within

a few years of completing them. Two years ago, Schwartz unloaded a portfolio of sites in Bushwick and Williamsburg, including, 99 N. Fourth St., a slender 7-story, 8-unit o ering, to the rm Corner Street Capital.

Raymond Levin of Manhattan-based law rm Herrick, Feinstein LLP

A limited liability company called 500 Kent, together with the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg, plan to build a 23-story of ce tower at 500 Kent Ave. RENDERING BY MARVEL ARCHITECTS

236 Gold St., Downtown Brooklyn | GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Brooklyn real estate executives launch rm to build

10,000 new housing units in city over the next 5 years

yB Eddie Small

A trio of longtime Brooklyn real estate executives is launching a rm that aims to bring 10,000 new housing units to the city over the next ve years.

Ofer Cohen, chairman of Brooklyn-focused brokerage TerraCRG, along with Tucker Reed and Vivian Liao, principals at Brooklyn-focused developer Totem, have joined forces to create the plat-

“Unless

pute the assumption that such projects are riskier bets to support.

“Unless you have a shovel-ready site, meaning a site that’s ready to go, capital markets aren’t able to really mobilize,” said Cohen, “and that’s a fundamental problem in solving the acute housing crisis.”

Need the support

Real estate projects in the city that require rezonings virtually always need the support of their local City Council member to move forward. is often translates to tense negotiations over issues like a ordability levels that can occasionally kill the projects outright.

you have a shovelready site, capital markets aren’t able to really mobilize, and that’s a fundamental problem in solving the acute housing crisis.”

Ofer Cohen, chairman of Brooklynfocused brokerage TerraCRG

form, called Ailanthus. It will focus on developing projects at sites that are not shovel-ready and may need to go through the city’s often-lengthy and contentious rezoning process in an e ort to dis-

e Ailanthus team plans to focus on strong engagement with community members and elected o cials over such issues to help ensure its housing pushes are successful.

“Not only do we happen to think it’s the right thing to do—it also makes better developments,” Liao said.

e company already has roughly 1,500 units of housing in its pipeline through Totem projects, such as a 456-unit building at 1057 Atlantic Ave. in Crown Heights and a 187-unit project at 737 Fourth Ave. in Sunset Park. It plans to take advantage of the new tax breaks and policy reforms in the state budget’s housing package as well, and it will donate at least 1% of its pro ts to Brooklyn Org., a philanthropic or-

ganization that distributes funding to local nonpro ts.

Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have both laid out ambitious targets for boosting housing production, with Adams calling for 500,000 new homes in the city and Hochul calling for 800,000 new homes in the state over the next decade. e state budget package includes several policies the Adams administration

supports in pursuit of this goal, such as raising the city’s residential density cap and a pilot program to legalize basement apartments. Adams o cials are now pursuing their own policy changes through the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiative, which aims to increase the city’s housing supply through measures including eliminating parking mandates and allowing backyard apartments.

Tucker Reed, Ofer Cohen and Vivian Liao | AILANTHUS

Soccer star Thierry Henry sets

$27M goal for SoHo

yB C. J. Hughes

One of professional soccer’s most celebrated strikers is hoping to score big with his SoHo spread.

ierry Henry, a World Cup winner, commentator and manager who played with the New York Red Bulls for four years, has listed his 6,100-square-foot triplex penthouse at 39 Crosby St. for $27.3 million, according to a listing that appeared May 15.

France-born Henry, who now appears to be living back in his home country and preparing for a coaching role in this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, bought the Manhattan apartment in a series of transactions in 2010 and 2011 for about $15 million, public records show, so he could potentially see an 80% return on his real estate investment.

e original deal included two levels of the triplex plus a deeded

penthouse

parking space, according to the city register; Henry tacked on a second parking spot a year later for $325,000. Also in 2011, after the departure of tenants, he purchased a unit below for $5.9 million, giving Henry a third level, according to the city register.

oor, opens to a terrace, part of 3,400 square feet of outdoor space that also includes a private roof deck with an outdoor kitchen and a bamboo garden.

Henry bought the Manhattan apartment in a series of transactions in 2010 and 2011 for about $15 million.

Spanning the top three oors of a condo that also goes by the address 425 Broome St., Henry’s combined aerie features ve bedrooms, ve full and two half-baths, and an open oor plan that gives an all-in-one loft vibe to its living room, dining room and kitchen.

e primary suite, on a di erent

Extreme heat fuels more workplace injuries, data shows

Caroline Spivack

A new report from the New York State Insurance Fund highlights the dramatic increase to the risk of injury workers face with high temperatures — a burgeoning threat to workplace safety as heat waves become more frequent and intense due to the climate crisis.

e insurance fund, which is the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer, said analysis of roughly 95,000 claims led by season between 2017 and 2021 found “a signi cant correlation of both the number and severity of

logged its hottest year on record, according to National Weather Service data. Summer 2023, in fact, was hotter than any other in the Northern Hemisphere for the past 2,000 years, according to a study published May 14 in Nature.

Mandatory protections bill

Climate-related hazards, such as extreme temperatures, poor air quality and increased allergens, can cause or worsen respiratory and cardiovascular illness, foodand water-borne diseases and mental health conditions.

Developed in the mid-2000s in a 5-story landmarked 19thcentury building with both castiron and brick facades, 39 Crosby has a total of 11 apartments, according to its original o ering plan. As part of the plan, the developers, members of the Malloy and DeMarinis families, layered glasswalled stories atop the existing cast-iron and brick edi ces. Henry’s penthouse is tucked into that contemporary addition.

Turnover at the condo appears rare, with the last unit to trade, a one-bedroom, changing hands in an o -market transaction for $1.9 million in 2020.

Numerous sponsorships

When Henry bought the apartment — the same year he came to the U.S. to lend his skills as a striker to the Red Bulls — he was among the highest-played soccer players in the world. Numerous sponsorships with A-list brands, which throughout Henry’s career have included Nike, Gillette and Renault, signi cantly padded his base salary of around $5 million. His actual income was reportedly closer to $20 million in those years.

In 2014 Henry left the Red Bulls, a 30-year-old team whose home eld is in Harrison, New Jersey, while also retiring from playing soccer.

But the team with which Henry is perhaps most associated is London’s Arsenal, for which he played between 1999 and 2007, a span that saw him scoring 174 goals across 254 games. Henry has also played professionally in Spain, Monaco and Italy.

Shannon Eidman, the Compass agent representing the apartment, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Roughly 95,000 claims led between 2017 and 2021 found “a signi cant correlation of both the number and severity of injuries” on days with temperatures that are classi ed as extreme heat.

injuries” on days with temperatures that are classi ed as extreme heat by the National Weather Service.

On such days, when the temperature is at or above 80 degrees, injuries on average were 45% more likely and 20% more costly in terms of medical expenses compared to days with lower temperatures, according to the insurance fund’s analysis.

Vulnerable sectors

A variety of workers are at risk, but those who work outdoors in construction, transportation, farming, manufacturing, emergency response and health care are particularly vulnerable, according to the insurance fund.

e data points are particularly worrying as New York has broken weather records with each passing year. In 2023, New York City

For instance, dehydration can injure the kidneys and impact blood pressure, and heat exhaustion if left untreated can lead to heat stroke and brain injury. Heat stress can also worsen heart and lung conditions and even result in death.

New York currently lacks heat safety standards for workers. A handful of states including California, Colorado and Washington have such worker protections in place.

But a bill introduced in Albany last year by Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos proposes mandatory protections for employers in construction, shipping, agriculture and other industries when the mercury rises to 80 degrees or higher.

Under the legislation, employers would have to provide water, breaks, protective gear and shade. e bill mandates comparable measures for cooler conditions at or below 60 degrees.

To date, the bill has stalled. Ramos and worker safety advocates have acknowledged that the legislation faces an uphill battle with employer pushback, particularly over temperature thresholds and the potential inclusion of independent contractors.

Thierry Henry | GETTY IMAGES

City Council approves 3 different rezonings in Brooklyn for projects that would create over 300 apartments

Nick Garber

e City Council on May 16 approved three di erent rezonings in Brooklyn that would create more than 300 apartments altogether.

e largest project, 281-311 Marcus Garvey Blvd., would consist of a pair of 9-story buildings on opposite sides of the same street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, containing 155 units combined — all of which would be a ordable.

Built by Paths Development (formerly known as Omni), the mixed-use project would also include commercial space, a boxing gym and medical o ces. It is an in ll project, being built on the campuses of the existing blocklong Evers Apartments and Betty Shabazz Apartments.

Another rezoning, at 1289 Atlantic Ave. in the same neighborhood, will result in a fully a ordable 14-story building with 112 apartments, overlooking the Nostrand Avenue Long Island Rail Road station. e developer, Joseph Atarien of Atari Realty, would also build ground- oor commercial and community space, as well as 39 ostreet parking spots.

Finally, a 9-story building at 817 Avenue H in Midwood would pro-

duce 42 apartments — 11 of which would be a ordable. e developer is the Agudist Council of Greater New York, an Orthodox Jewish group.

Council members support

All three projects advanced with the support of the local council members — Chi Ossé for the BedStuy developments and Farah Louis in Midwood. Speaker Adrienne Adams’ approach has largely preserved the practice of “member deference,” which gives lawmakers virtual veto power over projects in their districts, despite speculation that the tradition might end as the city’s housing shortage worsens.

But Speaker Adams has nonetheless pushed for the approval of a few major developments, and enacted a law last year that aims to spread new construction more evenly among neighborhoods by setting growth targets and studying each area’s housing needs.

e Atlantic Avenue project required a rezoning because it sits on what is otherwise a manufacturing-only site, while the two others needed zoning changes to add greater density.

“ is is an emergency and we

have to tackle the shortage without delay, which is why I’m excited about these two projects,” Ossé said at a hearing on the rezonings earlier this month.

e Atlantic Avenue project approved May 16 sits just outside the 13-block area being eyed for a rezoning by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, which would pave the way for some 4,000 new homes in what is currently a manufacturing-only area.

Councilwoman Crystal Hudson, who represents much of that area, persuaded her fellow lawmakers to reject a di erent nine-story project in February that sat within that zone. Although the developers said their project followed the same framework as the neighborhood-wide plan, Hudson argued it would be premature to approve an individual development ahead of the broader rezoning.

Of course, permitting new proj-

FEATURED IN

ects and actually building them are di erent questions. Multiple developers in recent weeks have said the state’s new 485-x tax break for a ordable developments is not generous enough for their projects to pencil out nancially. Among them was Two Trees executive David Lombino, who told Crain’s that the company’s major River Ring project in Williamsburg is “not feasible” in the current high-interest rate environment.

A rendering of the two new buildings at 281 and 311 Marcus Garvey Blvd. in Brooklyn, which the City Council approved on May 16. OMNI NEW YORK

City lawmakers want a social worker in every police precinct

yB Amanda D’Ambrosio

City Council members proposed a new law May 16 to require the city to sta every police precinct with a licensed social worker, part of an e ort to expand the city’s non-police response to mental health emergencies and crime.

Council members Erik Bottcher, who represents parts of Midtown, and Yusef Salaam, who represents East Harlem, introduced the bill to address underlying reasons why people commit crimes, such as mental health or substance use issues. ere are no police precincts

with little investigation into why those individuals continue to offend. e lawmakers’ goal is to sta precincts with behavioral health clinicians who can connect people with social services or health care, something that police o cers don’t often do, Bottcher said.

High-pro le shooting

“Police aren’t trained to do that,” Bottcher told Crain’s. “It’s not their job, nor should it be.”

The lawmakers’ goal is to staff precincts with behavioral health clinicians who can connect people with social services or health care.

that currently have a social worker located onsite, Bottcher said.  Bottcher said that he has seen individuals cycle through the precinct in his district for petty crimes,

If passed, the law would mandate that the city health department sta all 77 police precincts with a licensed social worker. e clinicians would be required to report to precincts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but they would be employed by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Bottcher said employing clinicians from the health department would ensure a non-police response to people with mental health challenges. e NYPD did not respond to a

request for comment on the proposal from Crain’s on May 16.  e lawmakers announced the bill around a month after the high-pro le fatal police shooting of Win Rozario, a 19-year-old from Ozone Park who was shot after he called 911 in mental distress. e police o cers who responded to the call shot Rozario less than three minutes after they arrived at his home, o cer-worn body camera footage shows, sparking re-

newed outcry over how law enforcement responds to mental health-related emergencies.

Salaam, who chairs the Council’s committee on public safety, said that the circumstances could have been di erent if a social worker, not o cers, led the response to Rozario’s 911 call. “Win Rozario would have been alive today.”

e new bill does not include language to require social workers

News | Analysis | Events

to respond to mental health-related 911 calls, but it is something that the lawmakers are open to discussing, Bottcher said. e city currently has co-response teams that are sta ed with police o cers and clinicians employed by the health department, but those teams respond before or after crises, not during a 911 emergency. New York does not have teams of social workers and police o cers that currently respond to 911 calls.

Council members Yusef Salaam (center left, holding a blue folder) and Erik Bottcher (at the podium) on May 16 proposed new legislation that would place a social worker in all 77 police precincts in Harlem. BOTTCHER

Developer Heritage Equity Partners of oads South Bronx building after long-running battle with lender

yB C. J. Hughes

Troubled developer Heritage Equity Partners has unloaded another property after a longrunning battle with a lender, this time in the South Bronx, e once-hot development rm behind the Williamsburg Hotel and other high-pro le Brooklyn projects has sold 286 Rider Ave., a Mott Haven site where Heritage had planned a 105-unit rental complex.

e sale price of the deal, which went into contract April 16 and closed May 3, was $15 million, according to a deed, which was

loan that Heritage defaulted on in spring 2021, according to a lawsuit from Be-Aviv, which tried to put the site into bankruptcy protection shortly afterward.

Accusations

But Heritage accused Be-Aviv of essentially dooming the project, which sits in a district that has welcomed a steady parade of multifamily projects in recent years, by never making good on a promise to provide $42 million in construction funding.

e buyer of the 21,000-squarefoot parcel appears to be Rubin Equities, a developer linked to a handful of small rental projects as well as Downtown Brooklyn’s Tillary Hotel, which faced its own problems with foreclosure early in the pandemic.

In 2022 the Department of Buildings approved Heritage’s plan to demolish the single-story warehouse at 286 Rider Ave.

signed by William Rothner on behalf of Heritage.

Heritage, whose founder and chief executive o cer is Toby Moskovitz, paid $10 million for the industrial property at East 139th Street in 2019, records show. For the purchase, Manhattan based lender Be-Aviv contributed $8 million in acquisition nancing, a

Sam Rubin signed the deed for the rm. Founded in 2008, Heritage was one of several vanguard firms to see potential in industrial sites and halfutilized properties on the north side of Williamsburg as the neighborhood gentrified. The firm’s signature project was properly the trendy Williamsburg Hotel (now known as the Arlo Williamsburg), though Heritage faced a foreclosure attempt

at the site by lender Benefit Street Partners after Heritage defaulted on a loan in 2019.

Heritage nally sold the 96 Wythe Ave. property at auction in 2023 for $96 million.

In the same vein, lender Fortress Investment Group took control of Heritage’s planned Bushwick Generator business incubator site in the fall for $26 mil-

lion after a four-year legal battle. A court referee claimed Heritage owed $53 million at the time of the sale.

Similarly upstart rm Bungalow Projects snapped up four Heritage-owned multifamily parcels earlier this year for about $27 million.

In 2022 the Department of Buildings approved Heritage’s

plan to demolish the single-story warehouse at 286 Rider. e same year o cials approved plans for an 8-story, 105-unit development at the site. But besides the installation of construction fencing, no substantial work appears to have taken place.

An email sent to Moskovitz was not returned by press time, and Rubin could not be reached.

Uber doubles down on health care with new platform for caregivers to manage patient transportation, deliveries

yB Amanda Glodowski

Uber has announced a new platform to help caregivers facilitate transportation for those they care for. e move also further expands the company’s footprint in the health care space.

The new offering, unveiled on May 15 at the company’s annual product event, allows caregivers to request and monitor rides and deliveries of prescriptions, gro -

ment on its projected revenue from the new product.

Uber will partner with Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial plans to reimburse consumers for the cost.

ceries and over-the-counter items for those they care for. In the coming months, Uber said it will start to partner with Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial plans to reimburse consumers for the cost. No additional costs will be passed on to the consumer, according to Caitlin Donovan, global head of Uber Health.

e company declined to com-

ere are an estimated 4.1 million caregivers in New York state, according to the state Department of Health. Fifty percent of caregivers nationwide said caregiving increased their level of emotional stress, while more than one-third said it a ected their physical feelings of stress, according to research from AARP. is isn’t Uber’s rst attempt to crack the health care market. In 2018, Uber Health launched to allow health plans and providers to use the platform to coordinate non-emergency transportation. e move was an attempt to o set no-shows at appointments; more than 20% of patients missed necessary care due to transportation access issues, according to a study conducted by Princetonbased nonpro t Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Today, there are more than 3,000 health plans and providers that use Uber Health to arrange patient transportation, according to Donovan.

Last fall, the firm also partnered with Chapter, a Greenwich Village-based Medicare navigation startup to help Medicare

Advantage enrollees maximize their benefits.

e moves are part of a growing trend in which insurance companies increasingly reimburse not just medical providers, but other services that can positively in u-

ence social determinants of health — non-medical factors such as economic stability, education and access to transit – that often have an outsize impact on health outcomes.

New York state has $7.5 billion

allocated towards its Medicaid 1115 waiver, a federally-approved amendment to the public health program that changes how it pays for health-related social needs, such as transportation, nutrition and even rent.

286 Rider Ave., Mott Haven | GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Southern Park Avenue, however, is more like the rest of Midtown and is part of a market with a 20% availability rate, according to Colliers. e data suggest its attractive but mostly older buildings don’t hold as much appeal to tenants when there is lots of newer space on the market. O ce rents in the area average $82 a square foot.

“ is is a period of adjustment, and there are landlords in the midst of trying to make it work,” said James Mettham, president of the Flatiron NoMad Partnership, a business improvement district that includes Park Avenue South.

Higher-quality offerings

Mettham is optimistic southern Park Avenue will get a jolt from the new life-sciences incubator at 345 Park Ave. South. e century-old building was recently rebranded the Cure Building, and last year a subsidiary of owner Deer eld Management got a $25 million grant from the administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul to cover half the cost of developing a 6,000-squarefoot lab space. Meanwhile, bistros and cafes are thriving along the avenue’s southern half.

“In terms of retail and energy on the street, you don’t sense it’s struggling,” Mettham said.

A big reason Park Avenue’s fortunes north of Grand Central have detached from the rest of Midtown, brokers say, is that before the pandemic hit a new competitor on the Far West Side pushed avenue landlords to spend millions improving their building’s lobbies, restaurants and even inhouse golf ranges. e tower 277 Park is 98% leased after $120 million in upgrades.

“Park Avenue had to grapple with a higher-quality o ering from Hudson Yards,” Marans said.

A rush of developers are planning their own higher-quality offerings. RXR Realty, which owns some struggling older buildings, aims to erect a supertall at 175 Park Ave. Ground hasn’t been broken, and the project is in “predevelopment,” an RXR o cial said. Boston Properties dreams of developing a supertall next to Grand Central if it can secure an anchor tenant. Vornado Realty Trust is one developer that has lined up an anchor tenant, and last month Mayor Eric Adams proclaimed the rm will next year begin redeveloping 350 Park at East 51st Street and create a supertall tower for hedge fund mogul Ken Gri n’s rm, Citadel.

“I’m here to say and let you know, there’s no rumors — it’s a reality,” Adams told a business group.

‘The severity of your situation’

Reality gets tougher in the blocks south of Grand Central. “Across East 38th Street, everything changes,” said Ruth Colp-Haber, CEO of Wharton Property Advisors.

Problems on Park Avenue’s southern half can be summed up with Cohen Bros. and WeWork. Cohen Bros., owner of nine Mid-

town towers and 12 million square feet nationwide, started developing o ce buildings in the late 1950s, not long after Fourth Avenue between East 32nd and East 17th streets was renamed Park Avenue South. Forbes reckons President Charles Cohen, the son of a founder, is worth $3 billion.

He owns 3 Park Avenue, a 650,000-square-foot tower at East 34th Street developed in 1973. Its occupancy rate has tumbled to 54%, from 86% in 2019. e largest remaining tenant, publisher Houghton Mi in Harcourt, is try-

wrong with the building,” he said. “We lost a couple of big tenants, but existing tenants are taking additional space.”

A couple of blocks south, Cohen Brothers’ 450,000-squarefoot building at 475 Park Ave. South, developed in 1969, is also about 50% vacant, according to CoStar. e building was a hub for tech companies, a sector in which working from home is especially popular.

“This is a period of adjustment, and there are landlords in the midst of trying to make it work.”

James Mettham, BIDs president of the Flatiron NoMad Partnership

ing to sublease 50% of its space, according to Fitch Ratings. Although 3 Park has excellent views and lots of corner windows, the corporate vibe is disrupted because the building’s bottom third is lled with high school students from Manhattan Academy for Arts and Language, Murray Hill Academy, Success Academy High School for the Liberal Arts and Unity Center for Urban Technologies High School.

“ e building has a stigma,” said Michael Cohen, president of tristate operations at Colliers. Cohen Brothers’ head of leasing, Marc Horowitz, disagrees.

“ ere’s absolutely nothing

Dakolias replied: “I am disappointed in your email and your lack of progress.”

“You’ve not made your last payment,” the banker admonished, “and you’ve not demonstrated that you understand or prioritize the severity of your situation.”

All or nothing at all

A short walk south, a sign outside Calvary Episcopal Church at East 21st Street reads, “Enjoy your forgiveness.” Forgiveness of debt is what Cohen hopes to enjoy after defaulting on $544 million of personally guaranteed loans earlier this year, according to a lawsuit led in March by lender Fortress Investment Group. Cohen wants the case dismissed. Horowitz said none of the defaulted loans are for properties in New York City, and he claims Fortress’s allegation that one loan was for the o ce building at 135 E. 57th St. was a mistake. An attorney for Fortress didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Shortly before the battle was joined, in an email sent at 1:34 a.m. on Feb. 27, Charles Cohen implored the co-chairman of Fortress, Dean Dakolias, to cut him some slack.

“Over the last 20+ years we have always found a way forward together,” Cohen said in a message shared in New York state court. “We need both meaningful relief and peace of mind to reach the goal line.”

Cohen was owed about $3 million in unpaid rent when WeWork led for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last November. e bankruptcy continues to reverberate down the street. WeWork tore up its lease for 419 Park Ave. South, leaving the building’s landlord, Walters & Samuels, high and dry to collect $2.6 million in unpaid rent. WeWork left 401 Park Ave. South before Chapter 11. However, it said recently that it plans to remain at 450-460 Park Ave. South, a 200,000-square-foot building developed in 1912 and owned by the Moinian Group.

A hearing to con rm WeWork’s reorganization plan is set for May 30. It has secured $450 million in new funding and plans to emerge from bankruptcy protection after purging all of its $4 billion in pre-petition obligations.

Another test comes with summer’s reopening of 360 Park Ave. South after three years of renovation work. e 450,000 square-foot building is so far only 23% leased, which may explain why the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board earlier this year sold its 29% stake back to Boston Properties for just $1. e sale means the fund is no longer on the hook for $46 million in funding obligations and $5 mil-

lion in annual interest costs, a potentially painful sum if the building doesn’t ll up.

Some tenants are seizing opportunities to grab attractive ofce space in Park Avenue South’s handsome, historic buildings. Komodo Health, a data analysis company, is moving into 13,000 square feet at 257 Park Ave. South after leaving 90 Fifth Ave. and touring more than 15 possibilities. Chief Marketing O cer Julie Goebel loves the Carrara-marble lobby and said the 20-story building developed in 1913 has all the latest amenities.

“Inside you’d never detect this is an older building,” Goebel said. e connection to another time attracted cutting-edge media outts including Facebook and BuzzFeed to 225-233 Park Ave. South, a limestone building at East 18th Street developed in 1909. But Facebook terminated its lease for 44% of the space, BuzzFeed moved out, and this month the lease expires for a tenant that rented 20% of the building, engineering rm STV. e building is owned by Orda Management.

Cohen said that “225-233, like 360 Park Avenue South, was leased to a handful of large tenants. Unfortunately, that’s an all or nothing-at-all strategy.” But 225-233 might not stay so empty for long. Brian Waterman, executive vice chairman at Newmark, said negotiations are underway with tenants who like the “incredible location” near Union Square.

“ ere are a few large tenants that we are in active discussions with,” he said.

The Cure Building at 345 Park Ave. South received money from the state last year to build a 6,000-square-foot lab space. | COSTAR

360 Park Ave. South, which is only 23% leased, will reopen this summer after after three years of renovations. BUCK ENNIS

Asking rents at Park Avenue towers north of Grand Central, like 280 Park Ave., are among the highest in the city. | NEWYORKOFFICES.COM

Mayor Eric Adams said in April that the long-planned redevelopment of 350 Park Ave. will begin next year. | ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

Queens health nonpro t inks $500M city shelter contract

yB Amanda D’Ambrosio

A Queens substance use treatment provider won a $500 million contract with the city on May 14 to provide homeless shelter services at its new housing project in Highbridge, city lings show.

Samaritan Daytop Village, based in Briarwood, secured a 30-year contract with the Department of Homeless Services that will cover shelter services and debt nancing for a new homeless shelter it’s developing in the Bronx. e nonpro t is planning to build the 106-bed family shelter at 1389 University Ave., next door to a permanent housing residence and community center that are also in the works. e entire development will encompass 400,000 square feet, city plans show.

Fund supportive services

e recent contract will fund supportive services at the homeless shelter, such as job training, health care navigation and individual and group counseling. Shelter sta will also connect residents in need of behavioral health care with Samaritan Daytop Village’s mental health and substance use treatment programs, as well as local medical facilities like the Damien Family Care Clinic.

e contract will also fund debt nancing for the construction of the new facility, said Jerry Mascuch, vice president of real estate at the nonpro t. e development is being constructed under a new city model that allows nonpro ts to own the buildings where they operate services as opposed to leasing from a private developer — a model that Mascuch says saves

the city and the provider money.

Construction plans

Samaritan Daytop Village has owned the Highbridge property since the 1980s, and it has since functioned as a residential treatment center for people with substance use disorders, Mascuch said. Over the next three years, the

nonpro t plans to construct a 315unit permanent and a ordable housing development at the property adjacent to the homeless shelter. Of those units, 190 will be a ordable to people with incomes under 50% of the a ordable median income level and the remaining apartments will be a ordable with incomes under 80% of the area median income.

Samaritan Daytop Village is also planning to build a 5,000 squarefoot community center on-site, which will house either health care services or a child care facility, Mascuch said. Mascuch said that construction of the new development is set to begin this summer. e organization hopes to complete the project by 2027.

Samaritan Daytop Village secured a $500 million contract to provide shelter services at a facility its developing at 1389 University Ave. in Highbridge. | SAMARITAN DAYTOP VILLAGE

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Business Analyst (Citadel Enterprise Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Mult. Pos. Avail. Resp for ensuring platform priorities are aligned with the bus strategy, roadmap, and platform’s tech and operational governance. F/T. Req a Master’s degree (or foreign equiv) in Info Syst, Math, Comp Sci, Comp Eng’g or a rel quant field and 1 yr of exp in fin svcs. Must have 1 yr of exp in each of the follow’g: Data mgmt and analytics incl Bus Intel, Data Analytics, Data Qual, Governance and Data Mgmt; Tech architecture incl vendor apps, implementation svcs, and tech infrastructure/architecture; Working w/ the design, dev, and modification and deploymt of software, incl object-oriented program’g concepts w/ using design stds and best practices; and config’g operational and admin rel parameters such as roles and permissions, user attributes regions, activity patterns. Exp may be gained concurrently. Sal range $195,000 - $235,000/yr. Resumes: citadelrecruitment@citadel.com. JobID: 7480830.

Consultant Relations Group Associate (Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO) – New York, NY); Mult. pos. avail. Gather, analyze, and discuss mkt trends and data. Engage w/ consultant contacts to address acct mgmt requests. F/T. Pos based in New York, NY; telecomm permitted up to one day/wk. Sal range $80,850 - $110,000/yr. Apply w/ resume to Lupe.Rubalcaba@pimco.com. Ref. Job ID: 7330783.

Associate (Citadel Securities Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Mult Pos Avail. Job duties incl: Synthesize supervisory obligations into a clear strategy plan that will lead to more effective supervision thru the automation of processes. Assist Compliance & Trading Desk Supervisors in the response to regulatory inquiries & operational control issues. F/T. Sal range $175,000 - $210,000/yr. Apply w/ resume to citadelrecruitment@citadel.com. Ref JobID: 7817902.

Software Engineering Team Lead (Citadel Securities Americas Services LLC –New York, NY); Mult. Pos. Avail. Oversee the design and bld of software components that are foundational to research and trading activities. Req a Bachelor’s degree (or foreign equiv) in Comp Science, Engineer’g, or a rel field plus 5 yrs of exp in the position offered or in kdb+/q development. Must have 3 yrs of exp in each of the following: Programm’g with C, C++, Python or Java in Windows or Linux; Distributed Computing, Platform Dev, Networking, System Design or Web Dev techniques; Object-oriented analysis and design; Data structures, algorithms and comp architecture paradigms; Working with electronic trading mkts for fin prod incl equities, fixed inc or similar; and Develop’g high perf analytics of mkt data. Exp may be gained concurrently. Sal range $280,000 - $320,000/yr. Resumes: citadelrecruitment@citadel.com. Ref JobID: 7624310

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Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/15/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/11/23. Princ. office of LLC: 55 Hudson Yards, 29th Fl., NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, Dover Office, 401 Federal St., Ste. 3, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of ALLEN OVERY SHEARMAN

STERLING US LLP Notice of Reg. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/01/24. Office location: NY County. LLP formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/22/24. Princ. office of LLP: 599 Lexington Ave., NY, NY 10022-6069. SSNY designated as agent of LLP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., 10th Fl., Albany, NY 12210. DE addr. of LLP: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Stmt. of Qual. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Law.

Notice of Qualification of 99C CAPITAL PARTNERS LLC

Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/23/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/17/24. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP, Attn: Gina Piazza, 1350 Broadway, 11th Fl., NY, NY 10018. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES

Notice of Qualification of WEALTHCARE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC

Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/22/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/25/00. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 108 Lakeland Ave., Dover, DE 19901. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Formation of Business of Trouble LLC

Notice of Formation of 11 LEONARD STREET LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/10/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of THEOREM PARTNERS LLC

Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/15/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/26/13. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 820 N. French St., 10th Fl., Wilmington, DE 19801. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of GSO CAPITAL PARTNERS GP L.L.C. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/09/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/25/15. Princ. office of LLC: 345 Park Ave., 31st Fl., NY, NY 10154. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Qualification of CRYSTAL SCREENS MEDIA LLC

Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/17/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/27/06. Princ. office of LLC: 125 W. 55th St., Level 23, NY, NY 10029. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Qualification of ChargeTab Acquisition LLC

Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/18/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/09/24. Princ. office of LLC: 101 Ave. of the Americas, 9th Fl., NY, NY 10013. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of NYMI 2110 LLC

Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/11/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/05/14. Princ. office of LLC: c/o LaSeven, Inc., 21 W. 58th St., Ste. 100, NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/28/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to; Shine Global, 350 W. 42nd St, 33B, New York, NY 10036. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of FAIRVIEW HOUSING CLASS B, LLC

Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/17/24. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 30 Hudson Yards, 72nd Fl., NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

ELBOW CLUB LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/13/24. Office Location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served against LLC to: PO BOX 488, LINCOLN PARK, NJ 07035, USA, Purpose: any lawful act.

351 W 48 ST LLC. App. for Auth. filed with the SSNY on 05/03/24. Originally filed with the Secretary of State of New Jersey on 03/07/24. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 161 Western Drive, Short Hills, NJ 07078. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice is hereby given that a License, number NA-0267-24115470 for wine, beer and cider has been applied for by the undersigned to sell wine, beer and cider in a Wine Tavern under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 1250 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027 for on premises consumption. NEXT TO VINO FINO LTD.

Notice of Qualification of BIDDEO MEDIA SOLUTIONS LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/23/24. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/08/24. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of H-MAP LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/11/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Kevin Ryan, 270 Bowery, NY, NY 10012. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 231 LINNET COURT, LLC

Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/23/24. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Ani Gabrellian, 450 E. 83rd St., Apt. 20B, NY, NY 10028. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Five Boroughs ONE STAGE

Vito J.

Fossella

BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Staten

Island

Vanessa L. Gibson

BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Bronx

Mark Levine

BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Manhattan

Antonio Reynoso

BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Brooklyn

Donovan Richards Jr.

BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Queens

have been open about their plans to apply for one of three downstate casino licenses, but took until May 16 to release details.

ose details were spelled out in a zoning application the developers led with the city, which identies a few hurdles particular to the Coney Island project. e casino complex would span parts of four city blocks between West 15th and 12th streets, between Surf Avenue and the boardwalk. e developers need city permission to close, or “demap” several of those public streets for private use, and also acquire some of that same land that is now owned by the city.

e 9-acre site is now home to a mix of parking lots and a stretch of low-rise commercial buildings along Surf Avenue, which include shooting galleries and an ice cream shop. or Equities has long been a major landowner in Coney Island, and it helped usher in a previous rezoning in 2009 that allowed more high-rise housing near the waterfront.

Eleven projects are known to be vying for a downstate casino license, but the Coney Island project is one of just four that needs its own local zoning changes in addition to the state license. e others are the Steve Cohen’s Willets Point bid, the Related Companies’ Hudson Yards proposal, and Bally’s

proposed casino at the former Trump Golf Links in the Bronx. (Related has begun its city-level review, which lasts about 7 months, but Cohen and Bally’s have not.)

But while those rivals are relying on those approvals to have any shot at a license, the Coney Island requests are more cosmetic — project spokesman Robert Busweiler said the developers are requesting the demapping only to “improve pedestrian access and improve tra c ow” on neighborhood streets. One of the streets, Wonder Wheel Way, would also be elevated by more than 2 feet to guard against climate

change-induced ooding.

Like many city rezonings, this one’s fate could depend on the stance of the local City Council member — in this case, Democrat Justin Brannan. Brannan has not said whether he supports the Coney Island bid but voted last month for the citywide rule change that legalized future casinos pending the state’s separate process of awarding licenses.

Extra hurdle

In a potential reflection of its extra hurdle at the city level, the Coney Island team last year

hired former City Councilman Domenic Recchia as an attorney and consultant. Recchia helped secure the neighborhood’s 2009 rezoning, but he has not registered as a lobbyist for the bid.

(Instead, the developers have hired three other lobbying teams at the city and state levels, including Albany-based Patricia Lynch Associates and Brooklynbased Bender Cantone.)

e Coney Island developers argue their project will help ful ll the city’s longtime goal of making the neighborhood into a yearround destination, rather than a warm-weather getaway.

“Situated in the middle of a preexisting entertainment district steps away from one of NYC’s most iconic historical landmarks, e Coney just makes sense,” said Saratoga Casino Holdings CEO Sam Gerrity in a statement, using the proposal’s o cial name. Like many of their rival bidders, the Coney Island developers have not foregrounded the casino component of their plan — this month’s o cial announcement led with the hotel and convention center, only brie y mentioning the casino itself and describing its size only in separate zoning paperwork. Local support will be crucial for all casino applicants, who must win a two-thirds vote from six-member panels of local o cials before being considered for a license.

e state’s casino process has been slow-moving, and o cials announced in March that no licenses will be awarded until 2025. Although some bidders have lamented the pushed-back timeline, state regulators said it will allow applicants like the Coney Island team to get their land-use issues resolved in time. Sitt, of or Equities, wields in uence in other respects: a Washington Post report recently revealed he was among the proIsrael businessmen communicating directly with Mayor Eric Adams to encourage a crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University.

A diagram showing the casino complex that Thor Equities and its partners are seeking to build at Coney Island, if they win city approval to demap streets and a state license to open the casino. THOR EQUITIES

‘Good

Day’ co-anchor has appetite for local

news and ne dining

Scotto’s New York-ness seems to have served both enterprises well

By | C. J. Hughes

Local news and linguine may have more in common than you think.

During her long career in New York, Rosanna Scotto, co-anchor of Fox’s Good Day New York, has shared stories about subway crime, asylum seekers and snowstorms. For about the same amount of time, she’s also helped operate her family’s restaurant, Fresco by Scotto, a Midtown hotspot known for its clubby atmosphere and Italian plates.

Her kind of outer-borough New York-ness—direct but warm, and peppered with long-sounding vowels—seems to have served both enterprises well.

“ ey liked my Brooklyn accent, and they liked my Brooklyn chutzpah,” Scotto said of the TV executives who gave her her big break in the 1980s, a sentiment that the patrons of Fresco, where fashion mavens, politicos and some Yankees rub elbows, might also express.

And in an industry known for ameouts, Fresco has endured, marking its 30th anniversary on East 52nd Street last year.

Owned and operated today by three generations of Scottos— Rosanna’s mother, Marion, in the front of the house as a greeter; daughter Jenna as the chief marketing o cer; and Rosanna serving as the “president of schmoozing,” according to its website—the restaurant is known for pairing its Tuscan-style steaks and scallops with a family vibe.

“You can always nd a Scotto in that place,” said Scotto, who is there three days a week. “So many people are repeat customers because they love the family angle.”

Appearing on air in New York on WABC in 1982 and joining the Fox a liate WNYW as a reporter in 1986 before assuming the anchor’s chair for the station’s 10 p.m. newscast in 1994, Scotto, who has co-anchored Good Day since 2008, may be living proof that local news is not, as is often described, dead. Showing up, asking questions and challenging assumptions will never go out of style, she said. “I think people will always want to know what’s going on in their community. at will never change,” she explained. “And you’re not going to nd the types of stories we cover by just going online.”

The career highlights

Some snippets from the highlight reel of Scotto’s four-Emmywin career include her scoop-fueled coverage of the Woody Allen-Mia Farrow custody trial in the 1990s; Madison Square Garden CEO James Dolan escalating his feud with the state’s liquor authority last year on live television; and ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo doing an about-face on congestion pricing this past December (he is now against it).

“ e Brooklyn accent kind of gures into how I make people comfortable to speak with me,”

Scotto said. “It’s kind of unassuming. And I want them to feel like they can get their point across. But I will also challenge them.”

Scotto grew up in Dyker Heights, a tight-knit Italian-American enclave known for its love of Christmas lights. Initially, Scotto dreamed of being an actor. In fact, she earned a degree in theater at Catholic University, but the idea of auditions proved unappealing. “I didn’t have the inner fortitude to be rejected on a regular basis,” she said.

But she also had a knack for news. “My mother used to call me Nosy Rosie,” she said of Marion, who worked in the Brooklyn borough president’s o ce as a fundraiser, while her father, Anthony, was an in uential union leader and political kingmaker who attracted his own press scrutiny. e reporters who often hounded Anthony imparted an indirect lesson: e media should be respectful. “It was always in the back of my mind, I think, that if I was ever in a position to ask questions, then I would try to be fair,” she said.

New York City has changed a lot since her Brooklyn days, she admits. “Some of my friends have moved to Florida. ey really feel a di erence in the city,” she said. But some differences may be worth celebrating, like the fact that Kings County, after many years of playing second ddle, has nally become cool.

“We used to laugh, in my family, about how we lived on the wrong side of the river. And then we

Grew up Dyker Heights, Brooklyn

Lives Upper East Side Education Bachelor of Fine Arts, Catholic University

Family Scotto’s husband is real estate lawyer Louis Ruggiero Sr. The couple has two children, Jenna and Louis Jr.

Fan favorite Restaurant patrons rave about “Mama Scotto’s” meatballs. “When people have them, they say they died and went to heaven.”

A rose by any other name? Rosanna’s mentor, Rose Ann Scamardella, a WABC anchor in the 1970s and 1980s, inspired Saturday Night Live newscaster character Roseanne Roseannadanna, who was played by the late actor Gilda Radner.

Party time The boldfaced names that attended Fresco by Scotto’s 30th anniversary bash in January included Al Roker, Katie Couric and Tony Danza.

Rosanna Scotto

Rosanna Scotto has balanced her journalism career with a run as a Midtown restaurateur. | BUCK ENNIS

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