City Plan to Lease Office Space Without Competitive Bidding is Paused
After Community Board 1 (CB1) raised ethical concerns about a City plan to lease 80,000 square feet of office space in the Financial District for a municipal agency, the Adams administration has delayed the project.
The original proposal sought to rent 80,000 square feet across three floors of the historic office building located at 14 Wall Street, to house the City’s Department for the Aging (DFTA), which is preparing to relocate from its current headquarters at Two Lafayette Street. This plan elicited a pro forma approval from CB1 in September. But controversy erupted 72 hours later focused on Jesse Hamilton, the Deputy Commissioner for Real Estate Services at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), which handles real estate transactions for Mayoral agencies. Three days after CB1 approved the plan, Mr. Hamilton was stopped by investigators from the office of the Manhattan District Attorney as he disembarked from a plane at Kennedy Airport, returning from a vacation in Japan where he was accompanied by a real estate broker who represents commercial landlords in lease negotiations with DCAS. During this stop, detectives seized phones from Mr. Hamilton and the broker.
This prompted CB1 chair Tammy Meltzer to send a letter to the City Planning Commission (which has final approval over proposals such as the DFTA plan to move to 14 Wall Street) urging “a thorough review of the proposed lease for 14 Wall Street.” She continued, “we are deeply troubled [that decisions] could have been influenced by individual personal gain,” and asked for assurances that the plan is “a prudent use of public funds and not a benefit to select private parties.”
Within days, separate probes of DCAS and Mr. Hamilton were launched by the City Council and City Comptroller Brad Lander. Each of these investigations is examining intertwined narratives: Mr. Hamilton’s decision to steer the DFTA lease to 14 Wall Street without competitive bidding, and the fact that the building’s owner, Alexander Rovt, is a top donor to election campaigns of Mayor Eric Adams. Mr. Rovt is also significant contributor to the legal defense fund that pays lawyers who are defending the scandal-plagued Mayor.
At the same time that these probes were announced, Mr. Adams acknowledged that his administration was putting the transaction on hold. City Council member Christopher Marte called the deal for space at 14 Wall Street “a fishy lease agreement,” and said, “New Yorkers deserve to know that taxpayers are getting the best deal, not rewarding the Mayor’s donors with a multimillion dollar lease.”