Hochul Asserts Bond With Real Estate Leaders at 2025 REBNY Gala

How do you do, fellow real estate professionals?

The Real Estate Board of New York is still the glue bringing the industry’s top leaders — and elected officials — together as hundreds gathered once again within The Glasshouse on Midtown’s Far West Side.

Attendees weren’t letting anything harsh their mellow even with crowds of protestors calling for a rent freeze outside of the venue. Especially chill was Gov. Kathy Hochul, who embraced the organization’s members with open arms in her remarks at the podium.

Hochul’s language illustrated the close ties between her office and REBNY, referring to REBNY’s chair Jed Walentas as “our chair” and office buildings as “our buildings.”

“If there are any elected officials who are not here tonight, you’re missing a damn good party. And to members of the legislature who want to get started on my agenda, we can start taking some votes right now,” Hochul said. 

Hochul touted the state’s accomplishments of replacing the 421a tax break for multifamily developments with 485x while encouraging office-to-residential conversions, even as office occupancy made major strides in a return to pre-pandemic levels in recent months.

“I’ll leave you with this one thought,” Hochul concluded her speech. “The only way we’re going to fill up all of our buildings and the new ones we’re working on is to give people a foundation of safety so they’re not afraid to come in on our subways.”

This referred to her announcement earlier Thursday that there would be four police officers on trains and more cameras throughout the system. The $77 million plan to put 750 additional cops specifically on overnight trains follows a series of high-profile assaults and murders within the subway system.

One such murder on Dec. 22 made national headlines when the sleeping, 57-year-old Debrina Kawam died after being set on fire on an F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station.

Mayor Eric Adams took a noticeably muted role in the REBNY festivities compared to last year, when he criticized the organization for not taking a more aggressive role in his fight to retain mayoral control of schools.

The mayor, facing a five-count federal bribery scandal and investigations into his administration’s handling of city office leases, stopped by for cocktails but did not deliver prepared remarks, as he was expected in Florida the next morning for a one-on-one meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.

Also present at the event were at least two of Adams’s rivals in the upcoming mayoral race: New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and former Comptroller Scott Stringer, who is aiming at a political comeback after an unsuccessful run for mayor in the last election.

Other pols in the crowd included New York City Council members Rafael Salamanca, Julie Menin and Keith Powers as well as Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Congressman Ritchie Torres.

But the gala was also characterized by the noisy chatter of real estate pros catching up, knocking back drinks and maybe even making deals, which makes it par for the course for nearly every REBNY gala in its 129-year history.

RXR’s Scott Rechler flew in from overseas to attend the event (he was also one of the honorees) and was rubbing elbows with Barry Gosin from Newmark (NMRK), which hosted an afterparty at a luxury car showroom around the corner. There, Newmark’s David Falk could be seen toasting Kramer Levin’s Jay Neveloff, and then gliding past TF Cornerstone’s Justin Elghanayan and Fried Frank’s Jonathan Mechanic. (Mechanic was another honoree.)

Other honorees included Tishman Speyer’s Michelle Adams, Avison Young’s Nicola Heryet, CBRE (CBRE)’s Thomas Lloyd, Congressman Torres and Craig Waggoner of Cushman & Wakefield (CWK) — most of whom Commercial Observer spotted as the night wore on.

We also saw plenty of other bigwigs, including C&W’s Bruce Mosler and CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe, not to mention owners and developers like past REBNY chairman Bill Rudin, BXP’s Hilary Spann, Himmel + Meringoff’s Leslie Himmel and many others, all of whom seemed to take the governor’s words to heart.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.