Robert Lieber

Location: The financial industry is changing before our eyes. What’s your outlook for the city’s economy in the short term and midterm?

Mr. Lieber: There’s no question that this is unprecedented in any kind of shape for Wall Street since the ’20s. So we’ve never seen anything this bad, at least not in a long, long time. But having said that … around the economy, our unemployment rate is still relatively low—5.1-ish percent right now—which is up a little bit. Our tax collections going forward are on target so far, though we still are fearful about some of that declining.

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As the economy sours, ever-rising construction costs seem to be an in-vogue subject: Last night, the New York Building Congress released a report on the topic; the Manhattan Institute put out recommendations for controlling cost escalations earlier this month; and, on Monday, the Bloomberg administration announced a set of initiatives to lower costs of city projects.

The basic problem--costs have been going up at least 10 percent annually for the past few years--doesn't seem to have any easy solutions, as the reports (both of which involved consultation with the same firm, Urbanomics) recommended a broad array of changes that could lower costs to varying degrees.  read more »

Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber, speaking yesterday at a Crain’s breakfast forum, was asked whether he would be open to giving more city subsidies to Forest City Ratner’s more than $4 billion Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. His noncommittal response:

“We have not received any kinds of requests, formally, from Forest City Ratner to date. But we’re open minded and we’ll listen, and if it makes sense, we’ll do it.”  read more »

The Bloomberg administration has cleared one of many obstacles standing in the way of redevelopment at Willets Point, reaching agreements with the numerous unions that were opposing the 61-acre project by Shea Stadium.

Members of the Central Labor Council, which generally wields strong influence with City Council members, had been pressuring the administration for wage and other guarantees before giving support to the multibillion-dollar project.

“We are wholeheartedly behind this project now,” said Neal Kwatra, the political director for UNITE HERE! who was working with the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council. Mr. Kwatra said the hotel council was now calling on the City Council to support the project.  read more »

At an Assembly hearing this morning on the far West Side, Lee Sander, executive director of the M.T.A., indicated that as the far West Side grows, the agency is considering bringing rapid bus service or a light rail to the district, supplementing the planned 1.5-mile extension of the No. 7 subway line.

“Between light rail and bus rapid transit, we are going to want to do everything we can to improve connectivity to the far West Side and the rest of Manhattan, but I think it needs to be a supplement to the No. 7 line,” Mr. Sander said. “We are working closely with [city Department of Transportation] Commissioner [Janette] Sadik-Khan in advancing bus rapid transit, and we ultimately would like to see an extensive network of bus rapid transit, which would be relevant in terms of certainly the 34th Street corridor, and as well as potentially the 42nd Street corridor.”  read more »

The woes of the mega-project have been a hot topic lately, as Moynihan Station, Atlantic Yards and Willets Point, to name a few, are facing challenges amid a rough economy and shifting political landscape (at the state level especially).

Timely, then, is tomorrow morning’s forum at the New School, where Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber is slated to address this very issue, at least according to the title of the program: “Maintaining Momentum: Can New York’s Ambitious Development Agenda Survive an Economic Downturn?”

Also, speaking on a panel, according to a release from the New School: City Comptroller William Thompson, Terra Holdings economist Gregory Heym, Pratt Center director Brad Lander, Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation President Rafael Salaberrios; and Manhattan Institute fellow Julia Vitullo-Martin.  read more »

A bunch of elected officials held a pro-Willets Point redevelopment rally at City Hall this morning in a likely attempt to counter efforts in the City Council to oppose the multi-billion dollar, 61-acre project, at least as currently presented.  read more »

The Bloomberg administration is facing stiff opposition to its Willets Point redevelopment plan.

The city commenced a seven-month rezoning process today for the 61-acre site by Shea Stadium, prompting 29 members of the City Council to declare their disappointment with the plan. (More details on the Council’s concerns here).

The letter seems to spell trouble for the Bloomberg administration on this project, which imagines a complete redevelopment of the manufacturing and car repair-intensive district.  read more »

The board of Off-Track Betting voted today, at the request of Michael Bloomberg, to shut itself down.

Michael Bloomberg said that the city will not use taxpayer money to keep Off-Track Betting afloat. Critics, including Bloomberg, charge that the city pays for O.T.B., but the state receives more money. In effect, closing O.T.B. puts pressure on Eliot Spitzer to step foward with the money.

In a letter today from Pat Foye--the downstate chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation--to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Rob Lieber and OT.B. head David Cornstein, Foye says that in 2007 the city received more money than the state from O.T.B. than the state, and also claims O.T.B. will be turning a profit "soon." He emphasized the need for new "racing and wagering" legislation and said it would take "only $1.1 million to ensure NYCOTB endures until legislation can be passed."

More after the jump.  read more »

Back in November, state Senator Carl Kruger bussed in a reported 500 people to a city-run information session on the redevelopment of Coney Island, disrupting and ultimately shutting down the meeting in a show of opposition to the plan.

Well, now the expenditure report for Mr. Kruger’s campaign committee has gone online, and the final tally is in: it seems the senator paid $2,475 to bus company Dimino Express for the event, only a small portion of the $1.63 million he lists as having in his campaign account.  read more »

It seems there’s a bit of overlap at City Hall. Robert Lieber yesterday became the new Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, taking over most of the responsibilities of Dan Doctoroff, who announced last month he was leaving the administration.

But Mr. Doctoroff is still around until Friday, according to mayoral spokesman John Gallagher, finishing up his last days as a public servant before becoming president of Bloomberg LP.  read more »

Without any ceremony or pomp, Robert Lieber on Tuesday became the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, inheriting a tremendous load from Daniel Doctoroff, the ambitious architect of the city’s development strategy for the past six years and one of Mayor Bloomberg’s closest confidants.

The timing of Mr. Lieber’s appointment hardly suggests his task will be simple.  read more »

More from Robert Lieber, New York City's next Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. The Observer met with him in November.

What about Coney Island? Why are you looking for another developer aside from Thor Equities to operate the amusement area there?

What we would like to try to do is look for ways to broaden seasonality of the business there so that it’s not just from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but in a way that emphasizes outdoor amusements so you don’t just have it overrun with projects that look like the Mall of America.  read more »

More from The Observer's November interview with Robert Lieber, the new Deputy Mayor for Economic Development:

Why did you take this job?

Because I had a great career at Lehman Brothers. I had been there for 20-some-odd years and had always been intrigued by New York City. I was not born here and didn’t go to school here. I moved here in ’76, ’77. If you look back, it was kind of New York at its worst. I told my girlfriend that I would go to New York because she was going to graduate school. I said I was going there for a year and a half; there was no chance I was going to stay there in that hellhole.  read more »

The Observer sat down in early November with Robert Lieber, the new Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. Mayor Bloomberg announced Mr. Lieber's appointment yesterday; he will succeed Daniel Doctoroff as City Hall's chief development czar.

In the early November interview, Mr. Lieber discussed his strategy for economic development in the city. We will have other excerpts from the interview throughout the day.  read more »

With two years left in his job and a whole lot left to do, Mayor Bloomberg today announced that administration insider Robert Lieber, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, would become his new Deputy Mayor for Economic Development.

The appointment raises a relative newcomer to the administration—Mr. Lieber joined the EDC last January after working at Lehman Brothers for over 20 years—while moving some of the load of predecessor Daniel Doctoroff to the court of Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler, who will assume control of the environmentally-focused PlaNYC, among other operations.

With all of the major development projects under his watch, Mr. Lieber will likely be rushing from day one (he starts Jan. 8) to get those developments into the ground, as many of the signature development initiatives of the Bloomberg administration have yet to see any cement poured.  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.

As president of the Economic Development Corporation—a post Mayor Bloomberg appointed him to in January–Robert Lieber has the job of promoting economic development citywide through real estate. He’s turned his focus lately on the outer boroughs.  read more »

Crain's is reporting that Robert Lieber, a managing director of Lehman Brothers, has accepted the presidency of the city's Economic Development Corporation. Mr. Lieber would take over from Andrew Alper, a former COO of Goldman Sachs, who left the EDC post in June after four years. - Tom Acitelli