The mayor’s office paused a lucrative lease that had been handed to a billionaire Eric Adams donor — following cries of “corruption” by the City Council.
Connor Martinez, the director of legislative affairs in the mayor’s office, sent an email on Nov. 12 to the concerned councilmembers confirming the city lease at 14 Wall Street, owned by real estate investor and Adams donor Alexander Rovt, had been paused while a review was being conducted.
“Credit to First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer for hearing our concerns and pausing Department of Citywide Administration Services’s (DCAS) fishy lease agreement at 14 Wall Street,” Councilmembers Lincoln Restler, Chris Marte and Keith Powers said in a joint statement.
“New Yorkers deserve to know that taxpayers are getting the best deal – not rewarding the Mayor’s donors with a multi-million dollar lease.”
The pols had grilled DCAS Commissioner Louis Molina during a hearing late last month over a report that revealed Jesse Hamilton — a former state senator and longtime friend of Adams — had yanked a lease for the city’s Department of Aging and instead handed it to 14 Wall Street.
Molina insisted to the council that Hamilton — who was a no show at the hearing — had gotten the city a good deal, even as Adams announced he had directed Torres-Springer, his new first deputy mayor, to look into the leasing agreements.
Emails show the councilmembers requested the Adams administration withdraw the lease agreement and conduct a review of all the real estate transactions that Hamilton — the DCAS’ deputy commissioner for real estate services who oversees the city’s $1.5 billion leasing portfolio — had been involved in.
Concerns by councilmembers arose after Politico reported Hamilton overruled a formal bidding process that had awarded a contract for relocating the Department of Aging to 250 Broadway, across from City Hall, and instead gave the contract to 14 Wall Street.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is also reportedly probing whether bribes have motivated City Hall’s leasing of commercial properties.
Agents for the DA’s Office recently seized Hamilton’s phone after he returned from a trip to Japan with the mayor’s advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin and a broker for real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield who handles its dealings with DCAS. None of them have been accused of wrongdoing.