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September 19, 2008
New ESDC Chief Emphasizes Unity
The NY Sun
By Peter Kiefer
Though there seems to be no lack of support for Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan at the Empire State Development Corporation, leadership positions are being slowly filled in the wake of former Governor Eliot Spitzer's dramatic resignation.
The Empire State Development Corp. has been without a downstate president for seven months, but its new president and CEO, Marisa Lago, is not yet ready to say when the executive charged with overseeing New York City's economic development projects will be appointed.
In her first comments since assuming the job on Monday, Ms. Lago, who will be working out of a Manhattan office, pledged to spread her attention equally across New York State and to end a perception created under the Spitzer administration that the ESDC suffers from a confusing, bifurcated leadership structure that pits upstate versus downstate.
...
Ms. Lago is working with the ESDC's chairman, Robert Wilmers, to find a downstate president to help coordinate financing and construction for a number of development projects, including Forest City Ratner's plans for 16 skyscrapers; an 18,000-seat basketball arena for the Nets; thousands of apartments at a site at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues; the redevelopment of Penn Station, and the proposed expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.The position has been vacant since Patrick Foye resigned in March. Dennis Muller was appointed upstate president last month.
NoLandGrab: Did Ms. Lago mean unity, or UNITY, as in the community-created UNITY Plan for the Vanderbilt Railyard? If it's the latter, we couldn't agree more.
Posted by lumi at September 19, 2008 5:02 AM