New BPCA President Appointed
The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) has a new president and chief executive officer. At the agency’s Wednesday board meeting, Raju Mann was designated to lead the BPCA, which governs 92 acres between West Street and the Hudson River.
Mr. Mann comes to the BPCA from Arup, a multinational firm that offers design, engineering, architecture, and urban planning services related to infrastructure (often to government customers), where he has worked for approximately 18 months as an Associate Principal and City Planning Leader. (The BPCA has been a regular client of Arup’s for many years, with the firm working on designs for Teardrop Park, the West Thames Bridge, Pier A Plaza, and Wagner Park—in both its original incarnation and the new, more resilient version now under construction.)
Before joining Arup, Mr. Mann was the Director of Land Use at the City Council for eight years. Prior to his tenure on the staff of the municipal legislature, he chaired the Land Use and Transportation Committees of Community Board 5 (which consists of Midtown, roughly between Lexington and Eighth Avenues, from 14th to 59th Streets) for three years. He also previously worked at the Department of City Planning.
Although Mr. Mann did not speak at the Wednesday BPCA board meeting, the Authority released a statement on his behalf, in which he was quoted as saying, “I’m honored by the opportunity to join an incredible organization that for decades now has set the standard for successful, mixed-use, sustainable urban development. From coastal resiliency and sustainable green practices to the preservation of affordable housing, world-class public art, and vibrant, year-round programming in award-winning public spaces, Battery Park City leads the way in many of the measures that make cities livable. From a planner’s perspective, this is an opportunity like no other—and I can’t wait to get started.”
Mr. Mann’s salary (assuming he is compensated in line with his predecessor, B.J. Jones, who recently left the BCPA to join the administration of Mayor Eric Adams) will be approximately $250,000 per year, making him one of the highest-paid chiefs in the State’s system of authorities.
At the Wednesday meeting, BPCA board member Louis Bevilacqua, who led the recruitment effort, said a professional search firm had reviewed “dozens and dozens of resumes that would be appropriate, many of which would have been very good candidates. They presented us with six or seven very highly talented candidates that were diverse, extremely competent, and had great credentials. It was a tough decision. We got down to a couple finalists and we interviewed the finalists and quite frankly the process worked very smoothly, and I think we got an incredibly good candidate that was ultimately vetted by the Governor’s office.”
This was a reference to the fact that the Governor controls the BPCA, by appointing its board members. For this reason, it would not have been possible to hire any candidate for the job of Authority president without the Governor’s approval.
BPCA board member Martha Gallo added that the recruitment panel led by Mr. Bevilacqua “spent hours, literally hours, with our search committee first, and with the candidates, helping us get to the right answer.”
BPCA board chair Donald Capoccia observed, “I had to tell my search committee that I had worked with Raju before. I wanted to make sure everyone knew that.” This was a reference to the fact that Mr. Capoccia is a real estate developer who regularly strikes deals with the City and the State involving the use of public land and tax-payer subsidies. “I have direct experience with him; I sat actually on the other side of the table,” Mr. Capoccia continued. “I was his counterparty. So we were always trying to go back and forth. But I was always impressed with the skill and more importantly the respect with which he managed to communicate and negotiate with his counterparties. I have been in a lot of meetings where there were a lot of raised voices. His was not the raised voice, ever. He was the voice of reason, and it really impressed me and it has stuck with me.”
Mr. Capoccia then asked his fellow BPCA board members, “can I have a motion to appoint Raju as president and CEO of Battery Park City Authority?” Following the unanimous vote, Mr. Capoccia said to Mr. Mann, “congratulations and welcome aboard.”