{"id":131956,"date":"2026-02-13T00:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/131956\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T00:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:27:08","slug":"nyc-builders-need-to-use-their-clout-to-stop-mamdani-if-they-hope-to-save-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/131956\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC builders need to use their clout to stop Mamdani \u2014 if they hope to save the city"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Partnership for New York City under new President Steve Fulop seems eager to challenge Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s puerile \u201cdemocratic socialism\u201d agenda.<\/a><\/p>\n

But when will we hear the same resolve from the industry that generates the largest share of Big Apple tax revenue?<\/p>\n

That, of course, is real estate, especially commercial real estate.<\/p>\n

Developers and landlords should scream much louder than they have over Mamdani\u2019s pitch\u00a0for higher taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals.<\/a><\/p>\n

He made a tin-cup trip to Albany this week to whine over the city\u2019s alleged need for more income-tax cash.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier said she opposed tax increases, but Mamdani\u2019s\u00a0recent endorsement of her<\/a> could sway her to his side after the election.<\/p>\n

Manhattan\u2019s real-estate royalty spent big bucks trying to defeat Mamdani<\/a> in last year\u2019s primary and election, but they\u2019ve gone mostly mute ever since.<\/p>\n

This, although Mamdani\u2019s wish-list tax hikes would promote corporate retrenchment and discourage tenants from signing new leases.<\/p>\n

That would imperil, if not cripple, commercial leasing \u2014 an indirect blow to the business more damaging than any direct action Mamdani could take against it.<\/p>\n

Higher taxes on companies would mean less revenue for the city from real-estate taxes, which contribute the most money to municipal coffers.<\/p>\n

Unlike his crackdown on a few rotten apartment landlords, Mamdani has not directly disparaged the commercial-property world.<\/p>\n

While he subscribes to stupid\u00a0economic theories, he isn\u2019t stupid; the office market keeps the city afloat.<\/p>\n

Tax revenue generated by real estate\u00a0stands between the Big Apple\u2019s chronic but manageable fiscal strain and an utter collapse, as occurred in the near-bankruptcy of 1975.<\/p>\n

The most recent survey by the Real Estate Board of New York, in March, revealed that real-estate taxes hit a record-high $37 billion \u2014 nearly half of the city\u2019s tax intake, easily eclipsing Wall Street\u2019s contribution.<\/p>\n

And commercial real estate, from the century-old Empire State Building to the new JP Morgan Chase tower, generates the largest portion of it.<\/p>\n

It accounts for the largest share of property taxes, which comprised 89% of all of last year\u2019s $37 billion windfall.<\/p>\n

Real-estate tax dollars \u2014 from \u201csidewalk interruption permits\u201d to \u00a0transfer taxes on billion-dollar property sales \u2014 pay for all the wages and benefits of 280,000 city employees, including the NYPD.<\/p>\n

They contribute substantially to the state-controlled MTA\u2019s capital-improvement budget.<\/p>\n

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From their position of strength, commercial moguls\u00a0can and should use their\u00a0dough and formidable lobbying clout to thwart Mandani\u2019s \u00a0agenda \u2014 in public forums, in the media and behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

Before Mamdani\u2019s election, most office landlords pussyfooted behind claims they \u201cwant to work with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their caution at the time might have been politick.<\/p>\n

But they continue to pull their punches.<\/p>\n

For example, Rob Speyer, president of Rockefeller Center owner Tishman Speyer, told the Commercial Observer he admires Mamdani because he \u201creached out immediately after the primary to people who didn\u2019t support him \u2014 including me. He . . . actively listened, as he solicited our views.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s dandy, but we need to hear Speyer \u2014 and fellow big developers such as Marc Holliday, Douglas Durst, Steve Roth and Gary Barnett \u2014 specifically take on\u00a0Mamdani\u2019s\u00a0tax-the-rich pipedream that might drive their tenants out of town.<\/p>\n

Advisory firm KPMG, in a new report called \u201cPerspectives: Local Insights from New York City,\u201d found that \u00a070% of business leaders said they plan to \u201cincrease their commercial real-estate footprint [in the city] in the next 12\u201318 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

But any incremental gain the city would realize from higher levies on companies would be peanuts compared with catastrophic blow to municipal coffers that would result\u00a0from\u00a0tenant contractions that ruin landlords.<\/p>\n

As equity analyst firm BTIG put it in this month\u2019s \u201cbuy\u201d recommendation for shares of developer SL Green, \u00a0a \u201cdownside scenario\u201d could kick in if, \u201cthe \u00a0new Mayoral Administration creates an unfriendly business environment and slows the pace of business formation\/increases relocation of existing businesses which in turn slows leasing and impacts office real estate values.\u201d<\/p>\n

The time for timid talk about Mamdani is over. Our skyscraper-builders should let him know they\u2019ll no longer be cowed \u2014 and there will be hell to pay if he bullies Hochul into gutting the cash flow \u00a0that keeps the metropolis\u00a0alive.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, to his short-term credit, let stand measures passed by former Mayor Eric Adams to speed up projects needing public approvals \u00a0and protect projects from the whims of individual City Council members \u2014 even though he could have canceled them.<\/p>\n

But tax hikes on corporations could wipe out all the progress at a stroke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Partnership for New York City under new President Steve Fulop seems eager to challenge Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1489,34858,12614,81,426,9,56,63,65,64,299,7754,1211,2780,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-131956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-commercial-real-estate","9":"tag-corporations","10":"tag-empire-state-building","11":"tag-eric-adams","12":"tag-kathy-hochul","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-nyc-headlines","17":"tag-nyc-news","18":"tag-opinion","19":"tag-property-taxes","20":"tag-socialism","21":"tag-taxes","22":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}