Mayor Bloomberg is seeking to grab control of Governors Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park, pushing the Paterson administration aside in an attempt to spur progress on the two projects, both of which would create new real estate development and public parkland.
As part of the mayor’s plan, his administration would take money it invested Read More
Earlier this week, Avi Schick, the recently departed COO of the state’s development agency, penned an op-ed in the Daily News calling for the city and state comptrollers to put $2 billion of their $200 billion or so in pension investments specifically toward the beleaguered commercial real estate sector. Per the op-ed, Read More
Avi Schick, the prosecutor-turned-development official who has served as downstate president of the Empire State Development Corporation for the past two years, will leave his job this week. Mr. Schick emailed a letter on Monday evening to colleagues announcing his departure (a copy of the letter is below).
Mr. Schick’s departure comes more than seven Read More
Mayor Bloomberg called today for the dismantling of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the state’s main agency involved in downtown redevelopment, advocating in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Governor Paterson "hand over its development responsibilities to the city."
From the op-ed:
The LMDC would also turn over its responsibility for demolishing the Read More
It seems the second blight study commissioned for Columbia University’s planned West Harlem expansion did not come at extra cost to the state, as the Empire State Development Corporation’s spokesman confirmed today that Columbia picked up the report’s $217,000 tab.
The state’s major development agency, ESDC, yesterday declared the 17-acre expansion footprint as blighted, Read More
The state’s main development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, kicked off the public process for eminent domain for Columbia University’s 17-acre West Harlem expansion today, starting a final chapter in the approvals for the contentious $7 billion initiative.
In announcing the process, ESDC President Avi Schick unveiled two unexpected nuggets of news surrounding the Read More
Here’s David Paterson talking about reverting the state Economic Development Corporation to the structure it had before Eliot Spitzer. The former governor created two E.D.C. chairs–one for upstate, one for downstate; Paterson is getting rid of one.
“You can’t have an upstate economic development corporation chair and a downstate one, which is what Read More
Avi Schick’s foray into the world of economic development has been swift. Less than two years ago, Mr. Schick, 41, was a deputy in the state attorney general’s office, the lead prosecutor on Eliot Spitzer’s suit against former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso.
A longtime attorney, today he sits as president and Read More
