After a long and controversial road, the Department for the Aging is officially relocating to 14 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan.
The Department of Citywide Administrative Services signed a 20-year lease for 81,000 square feet at Alexander Rovt’s property, Crain’s reported. The deal at the property owned by Rovt, an investor who has donated to Mayor Eric Adams’ campaigns and legal fund, is worth $77 million.
In the first five years of the lease, the city will pay Rovt $33 per square foot. Every five years, the price per square foot will escalate, capped at $44 per square foot. It’s unclear when the Department for the Aging will relocate from 2 Lafayette Street.
“I evaluated the deal, and it was clear that 14 Wall St. was the best economic deal for the city,” DCAS Commissioner Louis Molina said.
The process for securing the lease has been ripe with criticism, particularly accusations that city officials steered the move towards an Adams donor. Former DCAS deputy commissioner Jesse Hamilton, who resigned last month, has been at the center of the controversy involving city office leases. He’s been indicted on corruption charges, though 14 Wall Street was not part of the indictment.
Hamilton reportedly stepped into the lease procurement process to push the deal towards Rovt, even though AmTrust Realty’s 250 Broadway was the top pick for the lease, based on an internal scoring system.
An internal review by DCAS — which did not look at Hamilton’s actions — determined that the agency followed proper procedures when it came to evaluating the lease possibilities. Additionally, DCAS claimed the 250 Broadway lease would’ve cost a total of an additional $16 million for taxpayers and said Department of the Aging officials preferred 14 Wall.
Rovt donated $9,200 to Adams’ mayoral and Brooklyn borough president campaigns and a further $5,000 for his legal defense fund. His wife and son have also made donations to the mayor.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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