Patrick Foye

While much of former Governor Eliot Spitzer’s economic development agenda seems to be on hold or in flux (e.g. Moynihan Station, for one), his once controversial plan for the Javits Convention Center has outlived his tenure.

The Paterson administration is trekking down the path of a renovation and modest expansion for Javits, with plans for an additional 50,000 square feet of exposition space and a truck storage area. The budget, at least as of a few weeks ago, was $1.3 billion for the whole ordeal, $300 million or so less than the amount approved for a much larger expansion and renovation under the Pataki administration (which the Spitzer folks later found to have a true cost of more than $3 billion).  read more »

Here’s a copy, in full, of Empire State Development Corporation downstate chairman Pat Foye’s resignation letter to Governor Paterson, dated yesterday:  read more »

Patrick Foye, the state’s downstate development chief, has resigned from his post, following Governor Spitzer out the door. Mr. Foye oversaw a wide array of development initiatives, most notably managing the mega-projects underway that dot the city, from the Javits Center renovation to the proposed multi-billion-dollar redevelopment and expansion of Pennsylvania Station as part of the Moynihan Station project.  read more »

No shakeups at the state’s development agency for now.

Warner Johnston, a spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporation, confirmed this afternoon that Patrick Foye, downstate chairman of the state agency, isn’t following Governor Spitzer out the door.

Mr. Foye works at the pleasure of the Governor and has no plans to leave his job, Mr. Johnston confirmed.  read more »

At the center of recent concern—voiced by advocates, officials and others involved with the process—surrounding the viability of the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station is where all the money will come from to fund it. [More on the broader issue here.]

State officials have said the redevelopment of Penn Station, part of a grander project known as Moynihan Station, will cost at least $2.2 billion (with emphasis on “at least”), and there’s a whole lot more funding that needs to be secured.

And while the state and other officials deny the plan is falling apart, expressing optimism, we thought a recap of the various funding commitments and potential sources was in order:  read more »

Bogged down with resistance to a plan to renovate the Javits Center and sell adjacent land, Spitzer administration economic development chief Patrick Foye tried to look ahead a few years in an op-ed in today’s Daily News, saying the state should start searching for other sites outside of Manhattan for a convention center.

With a newly renovated Javits, we also can start developing a longer-term vision for the future convention industry within New York City. That's why we have asked our partners in government, industry and labor to join us on a task force to think through what our city's long-term travel and tourism needs are, where a larger, more modern convention center could be built outside of Manhattan and how it can be funded down the road when market conditions make it viable.

Of course, the state has not done a thorough financial review, at least not to the public's knowledge, of the sites that are often mentioned as possible alternative locations, and 20 or so acres of available land, even outside of Manhattan, is not so easy to come by.  read more »

Since the Spitzer administration revealed its plans for a Javits Center expansion/renovation last month, the state has been clear that funding for the governor’s new $300 million downstate affordable-housing initiative, along with funding for two parks, will have to come from the sale of two unused land parcels to the north and the south of the convention center.

Joining the two separate projects, the state seemed to be saying that only with the $900 million or so raised from the Javits land sale could it afford the housing plan. “Want a housing plan? Support the Javits proposal,” the Spitzer administration implied.

The land-sale proposal became an instant lightning rod, drawing fire from most anyone and everyone involved with Javits, particularly over the sale of the northern parcel. Selling it would foreclose the possibility of expansion forever, critics charged. (Mr. Spitzer has said the price will forever be far too great to expand there, so selling the parcels makes sense.)

But it now appears there’s been something of a shift, housing advocates say.  read more »

The board of Off-Track Betting voted today, at the request of Michael Bloomberg, to shut itself down.

Michael Bloomberg said that the city will not use taxpayer money to keep Off-Track Betting afloat. Critics, including Bloomberg, charge that the city pays for O.T.B., but the state receives more money. In effect, closing O.T.B. puts pressure on Eliot Spitzer to step foward with the money.

In a letter today from Pat Foye--the downstate chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation--to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Rob Lieber and OT.B. head David Cornstein, Foye says that in 2007 the city received more money than the state from O.T.B. than the state, and also claims O.T.B. will be turning a profit "soon." He emphasized the need for new "racing and wagering" legislation and said it would take "only $1.1 million to ensure NYCOTB endures until legislation can be passed."

More after the jump.  read more »

Governor Spitzer’s plan for the Javits Center is drawing fire from a whole bunch of angry advocacy groups and officials, and that could spell a whole bunch of trouble for Hudson River Park, Governors Island, and a downstate affordable housing plan. (I wrote about other troubles in Hudson River Park in this week’s print edition.)

The dissent about the Javits plan, and its relationship to the parks and housing program comes not so much from the expensive renovation and modest expansion at the convention center, but rather the plan to sell two parcels on either end of the facility is raising hackles—so much so that a users group plans to meet today in Albany to lobby against it.

Facing a $4.4 billion budget gap and a desire to increase government programs, Mr. Spitzer wants to sell the two parcels for about $900 million, tying the sale to the capital funding of initiatives such as readying Governors Island for development.

Selling the land would preclude a later horizontal expansion on the site, and also move a truck marshalling yard inside the convention center. With the two acts taken together, now criticism seems to be coming from all sides.  read more »

More than a year into his term, Governor Spitzer seems to have settled on a plan to modestly expand the Jacob K. Javits Center, bringing toward a close a months-long imbroglio that began with a quixotic desire to better a Pataki-era expansion plan.

The downstate chairman of New York’s Empire State Development Corporation, Patrick Foye, told The Times on Friday that the state would go ahead with a $1.6 billion plan to renovate the existing facility and add a modest 100,000 feet of exhibition and meeting space. The renovations could cost about $800 million, though the plan will fit within the existing $1.8 billion budget approved in 2006.

The Observer broke the news in December of the likelihood of renovations instead of significant expansion.  read more »

Last week, while The Observer was on holiday, the state made clear that its once grand plans for expanding the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center have been dramatically scaled back, with the dream of a major expansion all but dead.

The admission by the state’s development czar Patrick Foye, who was speaking at a hearing chaired by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, came after almost a full year of review—one that found the expected costs of the project to exceed its $1.8 billon budget by more than $1 billion.  read more »

The state economic development agency and the private developers behind Moynihan Station have targeted an unlikely pot of money to help build the proposed $3 billion transit center in midtown west: homeland security dollars.

“This is a logical place for people to invest homeland dollars,” said James Dyer, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist who is representing Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies, the two firms that formed a joint venture to redevelop the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station. “Anytime you have a station carrying more people through it that go through the airports at any one time, you obviously are going to have security concerns.”

The developers paid Mr. Dyer’s firm, Clark & Weinstock, $220,000 in the first half of the year to lobby the Department of Homeland Security as well as other more obvious targets, such as Amtrak and the Department of Transportation, according to federal lobbying records.  read more »

Looks like any updates on the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station (to be known as Moynihan Station) will have to wait: We just got back a Freedom of Information request we put in to the Empire State Development Corporation for a whole bunch of e-mails between state officials and members of the two Moynihan development companies, Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies.

The results: a whole bunch of opaque black marker over text.  read more »

A couple more tidbits from Empire State Development Corporation downstate chairman Pat Foye's daily schedule from April through October, which we reported on yesterday. (The 300 or so pages listing six months of appointments were obtained through the Freedom of Information Law):

• Is ESDC looking to drop its indistinctive acronym?  read more »
  • 0 comments

After floating a number of multibillion-dollar plans to expand the Javits Convention Center, the state’s economic development agency is considering a drastically scaled-down version.  read more »

While we're on the subject of Wal-Mart...

A reader brought it to my attention that the co-chair of the state agency charged with developing business in New York gave away about $30,000 of stock in Wal-Mart and another company in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Empire State Development's downstate chairman, Patrick Foye, made the announcement about the Wal-Mart and Alexandria Real Estate stock during an ESD meeting back in March. (The statement about it was posted shortly afterwards.)  read more »

Mike Petralia, the state official overseeing the increasingly convoluted Javits Convention Center expansion, is leaving his job by the end of the month, according to sources. Appointed by the Pataki administration less than two years ago, he was not expected to last long once Governor Spitzer took over, especially given the fact that the new Governor is pushing for a new design of the $1.7 billion expansion.

Mr. Petralia's boss, Patrick Foye, the co-chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, said he would not comment on personnel matters, nor did Mr. Petralia return a telephone message left at his office on Friday.

- Matthew Schuerman

The Empire State Development Corporation used to send out meeting notices to the press that read:

Meetings are open to the public for observation, but not for direct participation.

Earlier this week, the state economic development agency sent out one for Thursday morning's board meeting--the first under Gov. Sptizer's co-chairmen Patrick Foye and Dan Gundersen--that read:

The meeting is open to the public for observation and comment.

And indeed, before every vote, Mr. Foye would ask if the public had any questions. For an agency that had gained a reputation as one of the more inscrutable deliberative bodies, well, that's worth a blog post at least.

Also, Mr. Foye said he would try to attend the public hearings on ESDC projects in person as much as possible. In the past, just staff would attend and relay the gist of it to the board members, who were the ones voting on this stuff.

(By the way, no one did have any questions at Thursday's meeting. Only three members of the public actually showed up.)

Let's see what happens when something controversial turns up on the agenda (which, by the way, ESDC hopes to post on the agency's Web site three days before each meeting.)

- Matthew Schuerman

On Election Day last November, Vishaan Chakrabarti, the name and face of the private developers that  read more »

Hip Clothier Sheds Threads, Declares Art for Art's Sake "The last time local clothier Brooklyn Industries tried to make an ambitious artistic statement in its storefronts, the effort only inspired area graffiti artists. Now, one year (and thousands of dollars in property damage) later, the small-but-expanding chain's owners have come back with a plan to look a lot less like sell-outs: In one location, they're not planning on selling anything--except their image." Go to Counter Espionage by Chris Shott. Daily News Hub Sells for $700 Million "Now, Mort Zuckerman will have to write his monthly rent checks to a rival. The home of Mr. Zuckerman's prized asset, the Daily News, is in contract for more than $700 million, according to a source with knowledge of the deal." New York Life Building Fills with Tenants "The New York Life Building is not having any trouble finding tenants. And, unlike so many of its iconic peers, it's not turning residential, either. Totally the opposite: The building is now fully leased, after filling 300,000 available square feet in the last 18 months." Go to Commercial Breaks by John Koblin. Spitzer Aide as Transit Savior: Arise Again, Moynihan Station! "Just a matter of hours after Gov. Spitzer won [in November], Patrick Foye, not even announced as chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, began to chart the course of an entirely new office district with a double-headed train station. Since then, Mr. Foye and others who work for him have been moving forward quickly to get Moynihan Station back on track after its demise in the final months of the Pataki administration, expanding the scope of any project to include the so-called Plan B, which would involve a new Penn Station as well." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman. It's a Long, Long Sales Haul for Manhattan Condos "At the dawn of 2000, when the idea that the average sales price for a Manhattan apartment could top a million dollars was but a glimmer in the eyes of brokers, it took 118 days, on average, to unload a condo. Not anymore. According to appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which prepares a quarterly market report for brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman, by the start of 2007, the average number of days it took to sell a condo shot up more than 60 percent from barely two years earlier." Go to The Lab by Tom Acitelli. Wendy Wasserstein's Garret Windows Go for $5.22 M. "It's been one year since the playwright Wendy Wasserstein died at the age of 55, and her old apartment, on the 11th floor of 75 Central Park West, has now been sold for $5.22 million." Did Lehman Estate Get Close to $32 M. at 2 East 67th? "Back in 1978, after the death of her colossal art collector husband Robert Lehman, Lee Anz Lehman bought herself the ninth floor of 2 East 67th Street. The queenly apartment will soon change hands after nearly 30 years: according to the Corcoran Web site, where the apartment was listed for $32 million, her estate has now signed a contract to sell the co-op." Go to Manhattan Transfers by Max Abelson.

Newsday's Errol Cockfield and the Daily News' Ben Smith are reporting that Patrick Foye, the president and chief executive of the United Way of Long Island, will be Eliot Spitzer's pick to chair the Empire State Development Corporation--the first time in 20 years that the post would not be held by a fundraiser for whomever is Governor. - Matthew Schuerman