New York City's economy is slowing and construction costs remain extraordinarily high, but the Bloomberg administration is still planning a number of ambitious development projects.
Will New York be able to maintain its fast pace of residential and commercial development? How are neighborhoods responding to zoning changes? What are developers doing about increased costs, tightened credit, and flattening property values?
On Wednesday, April 30, the Center for New York City Affairs presents Greg David, editor of Crain's New York Business, who will moderate a discussion on these issues.
Panelists include Robert Lieber, deputy mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding of the City of New York; William Thompson, comptroller of the City of New York; Gregory Heym, executive vice president and chief economist at Terra Holdings, LLC; Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development; Rafael Salaberrios, president of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation; and Julia Vitullo-Martin, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of the Center for Rethinking Development- The New School
Bio
Greg David
Greg David is the editor of the Crain's New York Business and director of Business Reporting Program, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Gregory Heym
Gregory Heym is executive vice president and chief economist for Terra Holdings, one of the nation's largest privately-held real estate services firms, and parent company to Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property.
As the creator of ValuExchange, Gregory oversees the most comprehensive database of residential property sales in Manhattan and Brooklyn. He leads a fully dedicated team of research professionals who develop and prepare market reports for Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Hamptons, and Palm Beach, with a printed circulation of well over 250,000.
Gregory is also widely recognized as an industry expert and is frequently quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and other national print media outlets. He is a frequent on-air news contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and NY1 and a member of the New York City Economic Advisory Panel.
Prior to joining Terra Holdings, Gregory served as vice president and chief economist for the real estate board of New York. In this role, he created and authored the Condominium Sales Report, Retail Report, and REBNY Market Report, while also forecasting New York City economic conditions.
Gregory also served as the government affairs liaison responsible for drafting position memos and performing financial analysis of state and city budgets, development projects, and tax benefit programs. REBNY continues to call upon Greg's expertise to this day as an instructor for the organization's New York Residential Specialization Program.
Gregory's professional background also includes working as an economist for the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. He graduated summa cum laude with a BS in economics from Saint John's University and received a MBA in finance from Hofstra University.
Brad Lander
Brad Lander directs the Pratt Center for Community Development, which works for a more just, equitable, and sustainable city for all New Yorkers by empowering communities to plan and realize their futures.
During Brad's tenure, the Pratt Center has helped to shape a new inclusionary zoning policy in order to create affordable housing in New York City, to protect the tenure of public housing residents in Staten Island, and to create a new dialogue and strategies for how growth can be made to work for New York's low- and moderate-income communities.
Brad also teaches affordable housing, real estate development, and community planning at Pratt.
Before coming to the institute in 2003, Brad served for a decade as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a community-based organization in Brooklyn that develops and manages affordable housing, creates economic opportunities through workforce development, job creation, and adult education, and organizes tenants and workers to fight for a better community. Brad's work at Fifth Avenue Committee was recognized with awards from the Ford Foundation, Fannie Mae Foundation, and New York magazine.
Brad holds two master's degrees - one in City and Regional Planning from Pratt and a second in Social Anthropology from the University College London. He also holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago.
Brad lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Meg Barnette, and their children, Marek and Rosa.
Robert C. Lieber
Robert C. Lieber is deputy mayor for economic development. Prior to his appointment, Lieber was the NYC Economic Development Corporation president, where he helped shepherd the Jamaica, Queens rezoning to completion, drawing on the work of more than a dozen city agencies in one of the largest rezonings that New York City has ever done.
Lieber helped develop the comprehensive rezoning plan for Coney Island and helped steer the city’s efforts to create a new mixed-use neighborhood in Willets Point.
As deputy mayor, Lieber will continue his work on the development of Moynihan Station, the river-to-river rezoning of 125th Street in Harlem, the transformation of the Kingsbridge Armory, and the development of the site of the former US Naval Homeport in Staten Island for which the Economic Development Corporation released three requests for proposals in October.
Lieber previously served as managing director for the private equity division of Lehman Brothers, Inc., where he was responsible for originations for a $2.8 billion real estate merchant banking fund.
Prior to that, he was group head of global real estate investment banking at Lehman. In 1999 and again in 2003, Lieber was recognized by Institutional Investor Magazine for “Deal of The Year,” and he was named “Financier of the Year” in 2005 by Commercial Property News.
Lieber holds a BTA from the University of Colorado and a MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is vice chairman of the Zell-Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School and trustee of the Urban Land Institute.
Lieber also acted as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School teaching Real Estate Capital Markets.
Rafael Salaberrios
Rafael Salaberrios is the president of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation.
William C. Thompson
William C. Thompson, Jr. is the current comptroller in the government of New York City. He was first elected to the post in 2001 as a democrat and was re-elected in 2005 to a second four-year term.
Thompson is considered a leading candidate for mayor of New York in 2009 and has amassed a campaign fund of $2 million.
Julia Vitullo-Martin
Julia Vitullo-Martin is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of the Center for Rethinking Development. Her work focuses on development issues such as planning and zoning, housing, rent regulation, environmental reviews, building and fire codes, and landmark preservation.
Vitullo-Martin has been widely published in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Sun, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, Commonweal, and Fortune, as well as academic journals. She has authored and edited three books, including Breaking Away: The Future of Cities (Century Foundation Press, 1996).
Prior to joining the Institute, Vitullo-Martin served as a senior fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice, managing editor for the Mayor's Commission on New York City in the year 2000, assistant commissioner for planning and development with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, and executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council.
In addition, she taught at the Graduate School of Management at New School University and the Graduate Department of Urban Planning at Hunter College. She has edited and written numerous reports for foundations and for the city, state, and federal governments.
Vitullo-Martin holds a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago. She lives on the West Side of Manhattan with her husband.
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