The DOJ Hammers Adams With An Indictment
What You Need To Know
If you haven’t heard by now, months of swirling FBI investigations into NYC Mayor Eric Adams turned into a 57-page indictment released Thursday.
The mayor is being charged with five federal crimes including wire fraud, bribery, and receiving and soliciting campaign contributions from a foreign national. This is one of several federal probes into the mayor and his inner circle, and the investigations have now resulted in the first federal criminal charges ever levied against a sitting mayor of the five boroughs.
Adams entered a plea of not guilty in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday morning.
A central figure of the indictment was a 36-story, $300M skyscraper that’s home to the Turkish Consulate. It opened in 2021, in time for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to swing by while attending the U.N. General Assembly.
The problem? The indictment alleges that Adams pressured the FDNY to skip the fire safety inspection after he had received campaign contributions illegally funneled from foreign businessmen. The mayor's campaign leveraged those donations to get $10M in matching funds from public coffers, prosecutors said.
Adams' attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges on Monday, writing that the U.S. attorney “alleges a 'bribery' scheme that does not meet the definition of bribery and indeed does not amount to a federal crime at all.” Hizzoner is due back in court Wednesday.
He’s insisting that he won’t step down — and the business world isn’t asking him to.
Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of big business lobbying group Partnership for New York City, said in a statement that the public “must allow the legal process to take its course, including a full assessment of a substantive response from the mayor to the charges against him.”
The real estate world is holding steady, too. Jeff Gural, GFP Real Estate’s Chairman, told me on Friday that “the fire department was so backed up, if the president of Turkey was coming, then I would expect that the mayor would ask the fire department to accelerate that inspection.”
If Adams does step down or is forced to resign, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams takes the reins temporarily and the city holds a special election. Business leaders aren’t necessarily a fan of that possibility — including Gural, who called the prospect of a Williams mayoralty “concerning.” Contenders for Gracie Mansion in the 2025 election thus far are all to Adams' left on the political spectrum.
But there might be other implications for the city’s CRE sector: As of last November, the FBI was also investigating an alleged list of “politically connected developers” that the FDNY was asked to prioritize. Watch this space.
— Ciara Long
Send tips, love letters and hate mail to ciara.long@bisnow.com.
What I Want To Know
Citigroup and Apollo Global Management are the latest institutions to team up, ready to finance $25B worth of deals in the corporate and private equity world over the next five years, Bloomberg reported. It's one of the latest examples of shadow banking, panelists said at Bisnow’s National Commercial Real Estate Finance Conference last week.
At the same time, we’re seeing many large institutions like Deutsche Bank, Capital One and some pension funds are offloading their real estate loans and limiting exposure to commercial real estate.
An article in the International Monetary Fund’s Finance & Development magazine says shadow banking is a way that institutions dodge regulators and “symbolizes one of the many failings of the financial system leading up to the global financial crisis.”
As alternative lenders begin to deploy capital and traditional lenders back down, is there anything that the industry should be wary of? What transparency do borrowers want when working with these new funds?
— Sasha Jones
Reach me at sasha.jones@bisnow.com or via Signal @SashaJones.06 to keep it encrypted.
First Look
The developer race for a single casino license continues to be rocking and rolling.
On Wednesday, Steve Cohen and Hard Rock International revealed renderings for an $8B, 50-acre development around Citi Field dubbed Metropolitan Park.
The project would include 25 acres of new public park space, public transportation and climate infrastructure, live music and a food hall, along with the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino with bars, restaurants and a sportsbook. That is, if the New York Mets owner attains the coveted license.
“When I bought this team, fans and the community kept saying we needed to do better. Metropolitan Park delivers on the promise of a shared space that people will not only want to come to and enjoy, but can be truly proud of,” Cohen said in a statement.
Can I Give You My Number?
$21M
The amount in unpaid rent RFR allegedly owes Cooper Union for the Chrysler Building’s ground lease. The school claims the developer stopped making payments after May, and it terminated the lease Friday. RFR's attorneys, which are suing to try to hang on to the NYC icon, lambasted Cooper Union’s leak of the termination letter, calling it “a desperate attempt to deflect attention from, and create a false narrative around, RFR’s commencement of a lawsuit against it mere hours earlier.”
They Said What?
“We don't have to live this way.” City Planning Commission Chair Dan Garodnick said before casting his vote for City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which changes restrictive zoning rules across the city that have stymied housing production. The proposal moves to city council following Wednesday’s 10-3 vote.
Hang Out With Me
Drop The Hot Goss
The Slice is produced by Bisnow Senior New York City Reporter Sasha Jones and is edited by Deputy Managing Editor Ethan Rothstein. Got an answer to my questions or info that you think I’d be interested in? I’m always happy to chat, on or off the record. Reach me at sasha.jones@bisnow.com or @SashaJones.06 on Signal, an encrypted messaging app.