The New York City Council is launching a probe into revelations that a private real estate firm scored a deal to redevelop the city government’s public health lab just months after one of the company’s executives joined Mayor Adams’ administration, the Daily News has learned.
In a letter sent Monday to Adams’ office, Gale Brewer and Amanda Farias, the chairwomen of the Council’s Oversight and Economic Development Committees respectively, demanded reams of records related to the administration official, Nate Bliss, and his involvement in the decision to let Taconic Partners overhaul the historic Manhattan public health lab. The News obtained a copy of the letter.
Taconic was picked by Adams’ administration in April 2022 to turn the lab on First Ave. in Kips Bay into a 500,000 square feet “state-of-the-art life sciences hub” dubbed “Innovation East.” The deal — which is subject to City Council approval — was awarded by the city Economic Development Corp., an entity Bliss helps oversee in his role as chief of staff to First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer.
The Taconic deal was announced after Bliss had just three months earlier left his job as Taconic’s vice president to join City Hall in late January 2022. Additionally, as first reported by NBC4 earlier this month, the deal came together at a time when Bliss was still pulling income from Taconic.
On top of his chief of staff job, Bliss was appointed by Adams in 2022 to become chair of the Land Development Corporation, an obscure municipal entity that ultimately needs to sign off on the lab redevelopment.
“The overlap between Mr. Bliss’ financial ties to Taconic, his roles at City Hall overseeing EDC and at LDC, and his involvement in projects like Innovation East raise significant concerns about potential conflicts of interest,” Brewer and Farias wrote in their letter addressed to Torres-Springer and EDC CEO Andrew Kimball, notifying them of their probe of the Taconic deal. “This seemingly complicates the distinction between his roles as a private-sector executive and a public official, which must be clarified.”
Among various other records, the Council members demanded all communications between Bliss, the mayor’s office and EDC staff about the Innovation East project while he was still employed at Taconic. They also requested the confidential bidding documents submitted by Taconic as part of the deal as well as communications between the EDC and the mayor’s office about the selection of the firm.
Brewer and Farias set a Monday deadline for Adams’ administration to fork over the requested records.
Adams’ office, EDC and Taconic didn’t immediately return requests for comment Thursday. Bliss didn’t return calls.
Previously, Adams’ office told NBC4 Bliss had no role in selecting Taconic for the project.
Bliss’ financial disclosures show he received between $100,000 and $250,000 from Taconic in the first few weeks of 2022 before he officially joined City Hall on Jan. 23 of that year.
Additionally, Bliss has reported in disclosures that while in city government he’s receiving payments from a real estate investment fund managed by Taconic. It’s unclear from his disclosures how much he may have received from that fund.
Brewer and Farias specifically asked Adams’ office to furnish records confirming how much Bliss has been paid or will be paid by that fund. They also asked for a list of all properties in the city the fund is or has been invested in.
Under city ethics law, a municipal employee is prohibited from working on any matters involving a private firm with which the employee has a financial relationship.
Besides his income, Taconic directly lobbied Bliss last year on land use issues related to the site where the life sciences hub is to be built, city records show.
The lab Taconic has been selected to transform is where government scientists developed the city’s responses to some of the worst public health emergencies in recent history, including the COVID pandemic. In order to accommodate the new life sciences hub, the lab is being moved to Harlem Hospital under the administration’s plan.
The Taconic deal concerns come at a time of heightened scrutiny around city government ethics as Adams remains under a federal corruption indictment to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Adams administration real estate dealings have recently come under especially intense scrutiny.
The Department of Administrative Services, which Torres-Springer’s office also helps oversee, is mired in controversy over a lawsuit alleging a top agency official, Jesse Hamilton, pressured the city government’s main commercial real estate broker to put one of his friends, Diana Boutross, in charge of the firm’s dealings with the city.
The lawsuit was filed after Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ ex-chief adviser and a friend to Hamilton and Boutross, was indicted on bribery charges related to favors she allegedly did for real estate developers. She has pleaded not guilty, and Hamilton and Boutross aren’t facing charges.
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