Mayor Adams just lately opened his new marketing campaign headquarters in a constructing owned by SL Inexperienced, the town’s largest business landlord and one among his greatest political backers — the most recent instance of Adams shoring up his ties with the highly effective agency as he kicks off a tough bid for reelection.
Marc Holliday, SL Inexperienced’s CEO, is a longtime supporter of Adams and presents him an important toehold into New York’s influential — and rich — actual property sector. In the course of the Democratic mayoral main marketing campaign, Adams’ rival, Andrew Cuomo, courted most sections of the true property world for monetary assist, together with Holliday.
However with Cuomo’s Democratic mayoral main loss within the rearview, Holliday seems to be lining up squarely behind Adams.
Final week, Holliday hosted a fundraiser for Adams at One Madison, SL Inexperienced’s flagship Flatiron District skyscraper, the place a whole lot of supporters donated almost $1 million to the mayor, a large haul. It comes as he’s scrambling to mount an unbiased run towards socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral nominee who’s the favourite to win November’s normal election, and Cuomo, who mentioned Monday he’s staying within the race.
Eighteen blocks north from One Madison, Adams has struck up one other connection to SL Inexperienced, opening his marketing campaign’s new headquarters final week on the Graybar Constructing on Lexington Avenue, one among various business properties the corporate owns in New York.
It wasn’t instantly clear how a lot area the marketing campaign is renting. Frank Carone, Adams’ marketing campaign chairman who’s additionally a guide engaged on SL Inexperienced’s bid to construct a on line casino in Manhattan, would solely say the mayor’s crew is paying “market rate” for the area.
SL Inexperienced, which holds intensive enterprise pursuits earlier than Adams’ administration, didn’t remark.
After Adams’ September 2024 indictment on corruption expenses, Holliday turned to Cuomo, pumping $100,000 into an excellent PAC that boosted the ex-governor’s main run. Cuomo is planning to run within the November election on an unbiased poll line and is more likely to attempt to search assist from the true property and finance sectors that supported him through the main.
However the brand new marketing campaign headquarters and final week’s massive fundraiser point out Adams has been capable of faucet not less than parts of the deep-pocketed actual property trade for assist, at the same time as polling reveals the mayor is dealing with an uphill climb amid continued fallout from his corruption indictment.
In turning to Holliday and SL Inexperienced for assist, Adams is treading acquainted floor.
Holliday is a longtime donor to Adams going again to his days as Brooklyn borough president. He and different SL Inexperienced executives have given almost $30,000 to Adams’ 2025 marketing campaign, data present.
Holliday and different SL Inexperienced execs are within the metropolis’s Doing Enterprise database due to the assorted monetary pursuits they’ve earlier than metropolis authorities.
One in every of SL Inexperienced’s greatest present tasks is its proposal to construct a on line casino in Instances Sq.. The state is anticipated later this yr to pick which developer will get to construct a on line casino within the metropolis, a extremely coveted, profitable enterprise enterprise that the mayor is anticipated to have some enter in.
Carone, Adams’ ex-chief of employees and political confidant, has been serving to SL Inexperienced with “community engagement” on the on line casino bid since leaving Metropolis Corridor in late 2022.
Citing the assorted overlapping political and enterprise pursuits between the 2 sides, John Kaehny, a veteran authorities watchdog who runs the Reinvent Albany group, known as the Adams marketing campaign’s lease for its new headquarters “sleazy,” arguing it opens the door to potential ethics points, given Adams’ marketing campaign is successfully benefiting a giant donor in renting the area.
Adams’ marketing campaign first revealed it might be utilizing area within the Graybar Constructing final week when it additionally introduced the mayor’s new marketing campaign crew.
“We are ready to out-organize, out-message, and outwork anyone standing in our way,” Carone mentioned in a press launch.
With Josephine Stratman
