The odds of Mayor Eric Adams remaining at City Hall for another four years appear, at the moment, to be low. Far closer to certain is that he’ll still be in power for the next four months.
Enter Empower NYC, an independent spending group that has raised nearly $1.5 million to back Adams’ longshot run for reelection — much of it from donors who have big real estate developments in the works as the clock ticks down on Adams’ first term.
Two developers need City Hall’s assistance navigating bureaucratic obstacles facing planned luxury condo towers on the Williamsburg waterfront. Another would benefit from a huge rezoning in Long Island City initiated by Adams and nearing approval. Another hopes to finalize a $60 million lease for city offices in a Wall Street office tower.
And one of the fund’s largest donors is looking to build a supertall tower — opposed by neighbors — on a block in between Central Park and Lincoln Center.
While Adams is a longshot for reelection — the platform Polymarket currently has his chances at 1% — these developers have laid down big money in recent months to support him, making donations ranging from $15,000 to $250,000 to Empower NYC.
Empower can take donations far in excess of the $2,100 maximum allowed for contributions directly to campaigns — a limit that drops to $400 for people with business pending before city government. Like all such committees, Empower supports a candidate (Adams) but isn’t allowed to coordinate actions with his campaign.
The group had raised $1.4 million through Aug. 27, almost all of it from real estate and financial interests, records show. And donations continued to arrive well into August, even as Adams’ standing in the polls remained stuck at the very back of the pack.
Eric Adams was framed by new housing construction in Greenpoint, Oct. 17, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Attorney Abe George formed Empower in the days after a judge approved the Trump Justice Department’s request to dismiss a federal corruption case against Adams, and the mayor announced he was skipping the June Democratic primary to run as an independent in November.
Since then, Adams has remained last or near last in poll after poll. Last week, as calls for him to drop out escalated, he revealed in a closed-door meeting with business leaders that he would soon be conducting a private poll to see whether he should drop out.
But throughout the summer, not only did developers make sizable contributions to Empower NYC, they also switched to backing Adams after having backed Andrew Cuomo’s losing primary bid for the Democratic nomination.
One of the biggest donations to Empower NYC came from Gary Barnett, founder of the mega-builder Extell Development, who made a $250,000 contribution in July. He had given $10,000 to the pro-Cuomo Fix the City PAC just three weeks earlier.
Barnett had been lobbying the Adams administration on behalf of his real estate projects — including a 1,200-foot-high tower he’s planning for the site of the Disney TV production complex on West 66th Street.
Starting under the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, a community group called Landmark West! had been working with the planning department on a proposed zoning change that would have greatly restricted the height of development on the block where Barnett seeks to build his tower.
The group’s executive director, Sean Khorsandi, said that the executive director of the Department of City Planning at the time, Edith Hsu-Chen, supported the zoning change.
That all changed under the Adams administration.
City records show that in early 2024 one of Extell Development’s lobbyists targeted Hsu-Chen regarding “zoning issues” related to the tower at 77 W. 66th St. Around that same time, the Department of City Planning suddenly suggested the group meet with Extell. Then Hsu-Chen reversed course and said the plan did not fit into the Adams City of Yes agenda to build affordable housing throughout the city.
Khorsandi says the group’s proposal would have created 1,400 affordable units compared to 400 offered by Extell.
George Janes, an urban planning consultant who helped draft the rezoning for Landmarks West!, was shocked when he noticed Barnett’s name as one of the top donors to Empower NYC.
“The fact that somebody comes in after we spend all of this time writing this application?” Janes said. “To have somebody come in and dump a big pile of money and blowing everything up, it’s like, ‘Come on!’”
Barnett did not respond to THE CITY’s emailed questions seeking comment.
Domino Effect
Two Trees is another developer that supported Cuomo’s spending group in the primary but has since ponied up for Adams.
In April, while Cuomo was far ahead in the polls, Two Trees gave $250,000 to the pro-Cuomo group, Fix The City. In August, Two Trees KG LLC, changed course, donating $100,000 to the pro-Adams Empower NYC.
Two Trees needs City Hall’s approval to expand one of its signature developments on the Brooklyn waterfront: luxury condo and office towers built on the site of the former Domino Sugar factory just north of the Williamsburg Bridge.
The firm was paying a lobbyist to target top staff in Adams’ Department of City Planning regarding “Domino Site Applications,” records show. Two Trees wants to build a new 1.17 million square foot tower on the site, which would add 1,262 units (including 430 designated as “affordable”).
The plan also seeks permission to build balconies on existing Domino towers and remove an odd skybridge that was part of the existing development.
The former Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg was redeveloped into a mixed-use office building, June 27, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The local community board and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso gave their advisory approvals to the project — with the proviso that Two Trees include a school in another project it was building a few blocks north on the East River called River Ring. The City Planning Commission held a hearing on the project July 30 but has yet to vote on it. Ultimately it will also require both City Council and mayoral approval.
Neither Two Trees nor its representatives at Berlin Rosen responded to THE CITY’s repeated calls seeking comment about the donations and the zoning change the developer seeks.
‘I Thought Eric Had the Best Chance’
Just south of the Williamsburg Bridge, another developer was finishing up yet another luxury condo tower on Brooklyn’s Gold Coast dubbed One Williamsburg Wharf. The developers, Access Industries and the Naftali Group, were banking on wrapping up construction by this fall.
On April 23, city building inspectors showed up to perform a site safety check, which the building passed. Two days later, Access wrote a $25,000 check to Empower.
The company was founded by Sir Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born billionaire knighted by the Queen of England for his philanthropic largesse, who had not given a dime to support Adams before that. (The Blavatnik Family Foundation is a donor to THE CITY.) In fact, in June his partners on the wharf tower, the Naftali Group, had given $150,000 to Fix The City, the pro-Cuomo group.
City inspectors returned in September in response to a complaint about unsafe conditions at the site. They imposed a partial stop-work order and issued three violations to contractors on the job that included unsafe scaffolding erected on the roof, buildings department records show. The development’s subcontractors paid $6,000 in fines, records show, and the stop work order was quickly lifted after inspectors deemed the scaffold safe.
Access did not respond to THE CITY’s emailed questions.
Then there’s Jeffrey Gural, another Empower donor who’d first bet on Cuomo. In April, when Cuomo appeared to be sailing to City Hall, Gural — CEO of GFP Real Estate, a major developer and property manager — gave Fix The City $25,000. But in August, with Adams still trailing in the polls, Gural switched horses. He and two relatives made donations to Empower totaling $45,000.
The Gural family manages and has developed properties across the city, including a 266,000 square foot LifeScience Building called Innolabs in Court Square. The building has a lease deal with the city’s Economic Development Corporation and it lies adjacent to a massive rezoning Adams has proposed for 54 blocks of Long Island City. The Gurals also own property inside the rezoning area.
The rezone, dubbed OneLIC, was approved by the Planning Commission two weeks ago, with the City Council expected to vote on it by the end of the year. The Adams administration touts it as a way to transform the neighborhood by creating 15,000 housing units, adding 3.5 million square feet of commercial space, and improving the waterfront.
In an emailed response to THE CITY’s questions, Gural denied that the Long Island City rezoning played any role in his decision to give to the Adams committee after giving to the Cuomo committee.
“After Andrew lost, I thought Eric had the best chance to beat Mamdani had Andrew dropped out. That is no longer the case. I have also known Eric for over 20 years and thought he did a good job.”
14 Wall Street
Another deep pocket donor seeking favorable treatment from the Adams administration was Alexander Rovt, a Ukrainian billionaire who owns a big office tower at 14 Wall Street where the city is planning to relocate the offices of the Department for the Aging.
Rovt has been a consistent backer of Adams since 2023 when he made a $1,500 donation to the mayor’s re-election bid. That December he and two relatives gave three donations totaling $15,000 to the mayor’s legal defense fund.
In June, days after Adams announced he was skipping the Democratic primary to run as an independent in November, Rovt wrote out a $15,000 check for Empower.
For months the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) had been looking to relocate the aging agency from a city-owned property to another location in Lower Manhattan. DCAS staff initially zeroed in on two sites: 250 Broadway, where other city agencies already had offices, and Rovt’s building, 14 Wall St.
Workers walked into 14 Wall St. near the Stock Exchange, Oct. 10, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The staff favored 250 Broadway, but Jesse Hamilton, a longtime associate of Adams the mayor had put in charge of city leases, intervened and began trying to steer the lease to 14 Wall St.
After THE CITY revealed Rovt’s donations and Hamilton’s involvement, City Councilmember Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) held a hearing zeroing in on Hamilton’s actions. The DFTA lease was put on hold while the Mayor’s Office of Risk Management began examining what had occurred. The city Department of Investigation also launched its own probe.
In a June letter to Councilmember Gale Brewer, the director of Risk Management revealed that after an examination of the DFTA lease activities, DCAS had decided to stick with 14 Wall St. and had begun final negotiations on the terms of the lease. That letter arrived on June 25 — two weeks after Rovt made his $15,000 donation to Empower.
In August, DCAS put up a public notice that the agency intends to enter into a 21-year lease with Rovt. Over the length of the agreement, Rovt will reap more than $60 million.
Rovt did not respond to THE CITY’s request for comment about the donations or the status of negotiations with DCAS over the lease at 14 Wall St.
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