The New York Sun's city editor, David Lombino, will leave the newspaper to become vice president of public affairs at the city's Economic Development Corporation. Here's more from our sister blog Media Mob.

On Wednesday, we wrote about a Real Estate Weekly report about how plans to relocate Fashion Week to the Port Authority were on hold because of issues over whether the bus terminal could accommodate additional traffic.

According to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Port Authority is one of many possible locations under consideration, but a deal to move the bi-weekly fashion shows to the grungy midtown bus terminal is nowhere near being finalized.

"Fashion Week is a vital asset to New York City and we are working expeditiously with IMG and the fashion industry to find a suitable new home,” said Patrick Murphy, the head of fashion/retail industry growth initiatives at the NYEDC. “The reports of an imminent or scuttled deal to move to the Port Authority Bus Terminal were erroneous.”  read more »

The Bloomberg administration’s plans to revitalize and reinvent Coney Island have been through a noticeable evolution. A year ago, the city wanted to partner with the private landowners in the amusement district at Coney to give the historic hub a makeover, establishing the neighborhood as a regional destination.

Then the city determined that the private landowners—one in particular, Joe Sitt of Thor Equities—were not the perfect partners they had imagined. In November, the mayor announced a plan that would put the city in the captain’s seat by taking control of the entire amusement zone, buying out or trading property with the owners.

Then last night, at a forum at the Museum of the City of New York, a city official acknowledged there were talks going on to reach some sort of agreement where the city would realize a remade amusement district in conjunction with the private landowners, which would represent a reverse from the November announcement. The official, Coney Island Development Corporation president Lynn Kelly, said she could not expand much beyond that, but did say of the plan that “the different landowners could partake in all of this.”

Why the shift since November?

As often with development fights, local politics reign supreme.  read more »

EDC veteran Seth Pinsky has been appointed head of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, taking over the job vacated by now-Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber, the city announced today.

The appointment of Mr. Pinsky, who as an EDC vice president had his hands in many of the city’s major development projects, seems to suggest the Bloomberg administration favored a clean transition as the mayor has less than two years left in office. The administration has previously looked to the private sector to fill top EDC positions, though the job may also have been a harder sell given its temporary nature.

In the past two years, EDC has seen a shuffling of its top ranks. In 2006, then-president Andrew Alper resigned, and his interim replacement Josh Sirefman went to Brookfield Properties a few months later. Kate Ascher, a top EDC vice president, left the agency last year for Vornado Realty Trust; and in December, the mayor announced that Mr. Lieber, in office for less than a year, was being promoted to take Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff’s job.  read more »

When City Councilman Hiram Monseratte said that land owners at Willets Point, Queens, did not think the city was engaged in “good faith negotiations” to relocate them, the president of the city's Economic Development Corporation took the opportunity to give out his phone number.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they tell you that,” Robert Lieber said at today’s City Council hearing on the subject. “I challenge any one of them to come up to me to tell me that to my face. I have talked to all of them. Let me also add that to the extent that they don’t think we are engaged, my number is 212-312-3511. Call me, because we are doing everything we can.”

After his testimony, as he was talking to a reporter outside Council Chambers, one Willets business owner stopped by to get Mr. Lieber’s business card—actually, three of them, to distribute to his friends.