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October 4, 2011
Downtown Brooklyn booster's tenure gets mixed reviews
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership President Joseph Chan oversaw retail, residential growth, but was a polarizing presence.
Crain's NY Business
by Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
Joseph Chan's arrival five years ago as president of the new Downtown Brooklyn Partnership was heralded as the start of something big for the city's third-largest—yet underachieving—business district. With backing from the Bloomberg administration and the borough's biggest corporations, Mr. Chan was expected to unify the local business groups, boost commerce on government-dominated blocks and attract buzz-worthy tenants.
Mr. Chan largely achieved these goals, though his tenure, which ended last week, was marked by controversy, budget woes and turf battles.
...“None of us had a big enough stake in [downtown Brooklyn],” said Bruce Ratner, whose MetroTech complex was built with a fortress-like design during the high-crime 1980s. But Mr. Chan rallied stakeholders and “suddenly, we were all speaking with one voice.”
But for some, Mr. Chan, a protégé of former Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, was a polarizing presence who favored big developers over small businesses. They believed he sometimes did the mayor's bidding.
...“It was another example of the Bloomberg administration blurring the lines between private industry and government,” said Councilwoman Letitia James.
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Posted by eric at October 4, 2011 10:28 AM