REBNY Officers Look Back And Ahead, Bet On Mayor’s Race, Midtown East Rezoning
By Billy Gray January 15, 2013 7:00 am
reprintsAmong Ms. Tighe’s signature achievements are keeping alive the fraught, glacially paced plans for a No. 7 line subway station at West 41st Street and 10th Avenue. She was a force on the “Move the Trial” campaign, a coalition that successfully relocated the trial of 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from lower Manhattan to Guantanamo Bay despite Mayor Bloomberg’s early support for setting the trial in Ground Zero’s backyard. Ms. Tighe also got the demolition ball rolling on Midtown East rezoning during the first year of her tenure.
More recent, niche victories for REBNY under Ms. Tighe’s chairwomanship include the extensions of two divisive tax exemption measures: the 421-a Program, which dramatically cuts taxes on residential property in underused or unused land to encourage their development, and the Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program, which provides up to 25 years of tax relief to eligible nonresidential properties that are improved upon or newly built.
Mr. Spinola cited a vast overhaul of the city’s crane operator licensing methods in the face of concerted local union opposition as another coup for REBNY, which gained Mayor Bloomberg as an ally in that tiff.
Real estate legislation pending in Albany includes items that could beefup the 421-a program and continue a Co-op and Condo Abatement Program that forms part of legislation S.7815. Members also hope to extend a modified version of the J-51 benefit—another piece of S.7815—a tax exemption initiative that expired last year which encouraged owners to upgrade their properties and was seen by foes as a gratuitous boon for luxury building owners.
On the subject of internal developments, REBNY members are confident in Mr. Speyer’s ability to navigate the Byzantine legislative processes in Albany and New York. But the new chairman’s broad experience across international real estate markets as the president and co-chief executive (with his father, Jerry Speyer, whom he also supplants as youngest elected REBNY chairman) of Tishman Speyer is what sets him apart from predecessors.
“Rob made dramatic investments in Asia and South America while owning a phenomenal portfolio in New York,” Mr. Siegel said. A fluency in foreign commercial real estate markets will inform Mr. Speyer’s work on projects like the Midtown East rezoning with global intricacies and implications.
Beyond the new chairman, REBNY’s leadership structure remains largely intact. Mr. Spinola, the president of the board since 1986, said that different chairmen “have their own style in how they argue a point, but share objectives.” In other words, Mr. Speyer is not expected to bring about convulsive change. And while he’s a building owner replacing Ms. Tighe, a broker, both share “an intellect to distinguish between real and self-serving interests,” Mr. Siegel said.
“Plus, nobody’s going away.”
