City pauses questionable lease deal that went to mayoral donor

NEW YORK — City Hall has stopped a questionable real estate contract from being awarded to a mayoral donor.

Earlier this year, as POLITICO first reported, a top mayoral aide overruled an internal bidding process at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to steer a lucrative lease deal to Alexander Rovt, a prominent contributor to New York City Mayor Eric Adams' campaign and legal defense fund who owns a landmarked office building at 14 Wall St.

On Tuesday, three members of the City Council said that lease agreement for a new Department for the Aging headquarters is being paused as City Hall investigates the contours of the deal.

"Credit to First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer for hearing our concerns and pausing DCAS' fishy lease agreement at 14 Wall St.," Council Members Lincoln Restler, Keith Powers and Chris Marte said in a joint statement. "New Yorkers deserve to know that taxpayers are getting the best deal — not rewarding the Mayor's donors with a multimillion lease."

After POLITICO revealed the questionable leasing decision in late October, the trio asked pointed questions about the deal at a hearing a week later, exposing that Jesse Hamilton — a longtime personal friend and political protégé of Adams who oversees lease transactions at DCAS — had disregarded an internal scoring system that had crowned the owner of 250 Broadway the winner of the bidding process.

DCAS is an obscure but critical city agency that oversees the city's real estate portfolio.

While the council itself opted not to nix the lease, the elected officials wrote to Torres-Springer asking her to take a closer look at the pending transaction — a request that was subsequently granted.

“As the mayor already indicated last month, a review is taking place on policies and procedures, including 14 Wall Street,” City Hall spokesperson Amaris Cockfield said in a statement, referring to revelations that Torres-Springer was going back over lease agreements inked under Hamilton. “As this review takes place, we are pausing the process of this lease.”

At the October hearing, lawmakers also asked questions about Hamilton's recent trip to Japan with other city officials, a lobbyist and a private real estate broker who works with him on municipal lease deals. Upon returning from that trip, agents from the Manhattan district attorney's office seized Hamilton's phone, as well as that of a top mayoral aide and the private broker, Diana Boutross. The office is looking into the lease agreements that Hamilton oversees.