Taconic, together with a improvement companion, have been picked by Adams’ administration in April 2022 to show the lab on First Ave. in Kips Bay right into a 500,000 sq. ft “state-of-the-art life sciences hub” dubbed “Innovation East.” The deal — which has but to be authorised by the Metropolis Council — is predicted to be price tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} and was awarded by town Financial Growth Corp., an entity Bliss helps oversee in his position as chief of workers to First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer.
New York Metropolis’s Public Well being Lab in Manhattan. (Google)
The Taconic deal was introduced after Bliss had simply three months earlier left his job as Taconic’s vice chairman to affix Metropolis Corridor in late January 2022. Moreover, as first reported by NBC4 earlier this month, the deal got here collectively at a time when Bliss was nonetheless pulling revenue from Taconic.
On prime of his chief of workers job, Bliss was appointed by Adams in 2022 to develop into chair of the Land Growth Company, an obscure municipal entity that finally must log 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 of 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.”
Amongst varied different data, the Council members demanded all communications between Bliss, the mayor’s workplace and EDC workers concerning the Innovation East venture whereas he was nonetheless employed at Taconic. In addition they requested the confidential bidding paperwork submitted by Taconic as a part of the deal in addition to communications between the EDC and the mayor’s workplace concerning the collection of the agency.
Brewer and Farias set a Monday deadline for Adams’ administration to fork over the requested data.
Adams spokeswoman Liz Garcia wouldn’t commit to satisfy the deadline, however stated the mayor’s workplace is reviewing the letter and “will respond to the Council accordingly.”
Earlier than becoming a member of Taconic in 2019, Bliss labored for the EDC’s actual property arm for over 15 years, overlapping with Torres-Springer, who was the company’s CEO between 2015 and 2017, their LinkedIn profiles present.
The EDC’s preliminary request for bids on the Innovation East venture precedes Adams’ administration and was issued in 2018, whereas Bliss nonetheless labored for the company.
EDC spokesman Jeff Holmes confirmed Thursday the company then entered negotiations with Taconic in January 2021 — at which level Bliss had gotten his new govt job at the true property agency — over redeveloping the general public well being lab.
Holmes stated an EDC choice committee that didn’t contain Bliss made the decision in April 2022 that Taconic ought to get the redevelopment award. Holmes didn’t specify who was on that committee.
Bliss didn’t return calls Thursday, however Taconic rep Dane Wisher stated “any suggestion of impropriety is baseless” because it pertains to Bliss and the agency’s dealings with town.
Bliss’ monetary disclosures present he obtained between $100,000 and $250,000 from Taconic within the first few weeks of 2022 earlier than he formally joined Metropolis Corridor on Jan. 23 of that 12 months.
Moreover, Bliss has reported in disclosures that whereas in metropolis authorities he’s receiving funds from an actual property funding fund managed by Taconic. It’s unclear from his disclosures how a lot he could have obtained from that fund.
Brewer and Farias particularly requested Adams’ workplace to furnish data confirming how a lot Bliss has been paid or will likely be paid by that fund. In addition they requested for an inventory of all properties within the metropolis the fund is or has been invested in.
Below metropolis ethics legislation, a municipal worker is prohibited from engaged on any issues involving a non-public agency with which the worker has a monetary relationship.
Moreover his revenue, Taconic immediately lobbied Bliss final 12 months on land use points associated to the location the place the life sciences hub is to be constructed, metropolis data present.
The lab Taconic has been chosen to remodel is the place authorities scientists developed town’s responses to among the worst public well being emergencies in latest historical past, together with the COVID pandemic. With the intention to accommodate the brand new life sciences hub, the lab is being moved to Harlem Hospital underneath the administration’s plan.
The Taconic deal issues come at a time of heightened scrutiny round metropolis authorities ethics as Adams stays underneath a federal corruption indictment to which he has pleaded not responsible.
Adams administration actual property dealings have just lately come underneath particularly intense scrutiny.
The Division of Administrative Providers, which Torres-Springer’s workplace additionally helps oversee, is mired in controversy over a lawsuit alleging a prime company official, Jesse Hamilton, pressured town authorities’s primary industrial actual property dealer to place one in every of his associates, Diana Boutross, accountable for the agency’s dealings with town.
The lawsuit was filed after Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ ex-chief adviser and a pal to Hamilton and Boutross, was indicted on bribery costs associated to favors she allegedly did for actual property builders. She has pleaded not responsible, and Hamilton and Boutross aren’t dealing with costs.
Initially Revealed: January 30, 2025 at 4:19 PM EST
