Taconic was picked by Adams’ administration in April 2022 to show the lab on First Ave. in Kips Bay right into a 500,000 sq. toes “state-of-the-art life sciences hub” dubbed “Innovation East.” The deal — which is topic to Metropolis Council approval — was awarded by the town Financial Improvement Corp., an entity Bliss helps oversee in his position as chief of employees 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 high of his chief of employees job, Bliss was appointed by Adams in 2022 to turn out to be chair of the Land Improvement Company, an obscure municipal entity that finally must log out 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 numerous different information, the Council members demanded all communications between Bliss, the mayor’s workplace and EDC employees 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 information.
Adams’ workplace, EDC and Taconic didn’t instantly return requests for remark Thursday. Bliss didn’t return calls.
Beforehand, Adams’ workplace informed NBC4 Bliss had no position in choosing Taconic for the venture.
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 information confirming how a lot Bliss has been paid or shall be paid by that fund. In addition they requested for a listing of all properties within the metropolis the fund is or has been invested in.
Beneath 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.
Apart from 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 information present.
The lab Taconic has been chosen to rework is the place authorities scientists developed the town’s responses to a few of the worst public well being emergencies in current 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 lately come underneath particularly intense scrutiny.
The Division of Administrative Companies, which Torres-Springer’s workplace additionally helps oversee, is mired in controversy over a lawsuit alleging a high company official, Jesse Hamilton, pressured the town authorities’s predominant business actual property dealer to place one in all his buddies, Diana Boutross, in control of the agency’s dealings with the town.
The lawsuit was filed after Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ ex-chief adviser and a pal to Hamilton and Boutross, was indicted on bribery expenses associated to favors she allegedly did for actual property builders. She has pleaded not responsible, and Hamilton and Boutross aren’t going through expenses.
Initially Printed: January 30, 2025 at 4:19 PM EST
