A high-end Manhattan sushi restaurant opened by mega-developer SL Green, one of Mayor Eric Adams’ biggest financial backers, landed on a high-priority Deputy Mayor of Operations list of locations eligible for fast-track FDNY inspections needed to open for business, THE CITY has learned.
The restaurant, JoJi, was able to open in September 2022 in the basement level of one of SL Green’s signature projects, One Vanderbilt, three months after landing on the DMO list. JoJi is described as a “partnership” that includes SL Green and renowned chefs George Ruan and Daniel Boulud.
As THE CITY first reported, the DMO list is now part of an ongoing federal investigation of Adams’ fundraising tactics and whether big money donors to the mayor have been able to skip the line for required fire-safety system inspections by being placed on this fast-track list.
The former chief of the FDNY’s fire prevention bureau, Joseph Jardin, has told the FBI the list, which started in 2021 in the de Blasio administration and continued under Adams, was supposed to cut red tape for small businesses. At the time FDNY inspections were badly backlogged, with the number of completed mandatory inspections dropping from 55,000 in fiscal 2018 to 31,000 in fiscal 2022.
Jardin says the DMO list in some cases resulted in powerful real estate interests with connections to City Hall receiving expedited responses from the department. He is suing the department, alleging he was demoted after complaining about the list and other protocol changes with which he disagreed.
According to a source familiar with the investigation, JoJi went on the list in June 2022 at a time when SL Green was pushing to open the ultra-chic sushi spot by mid-September in time to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the real estate firm being listed on the New York Stock Exchange. JoJi needed an FDNY inspection of the alarm system to open.
On Sunday fire officials declined to answer THE CITY’s questions about how JoJi got on the list and what actions, if any, the department took as a result. FDNY spokesperson Amanda Farinacci stated, “With a pending investigation, we cannot comment on individual cases.”
So far, details of at least one other developer given priority by the FDNY have emerged: Adams last week admitted that in the fall of 2021 when he was Brooklyn borough president, he asked then-FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro to look into the status of the FDNY’s inspection of a newly constructed tower near the United Nations that houses the Turkish consulate.
At the time, Adams had received tens of thousands of campaign dollars raised by entities with ties to Turkey. When Adams reached out to Nigro, the FDNY had not yet approved the building’s fire suppression system and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was planning to attend a ribbon-cutting there that fall. The FBI is now looking into whether any of Adams’ donations were illegally funded by the Turkish government.
Adams’ mayoral campaigns also have benefited from tens of thousands of dollars in donations from SL Green executives and employees.
In the summer of 2021, SL Green’s CEO Marc Holliday hosted a fundraiser for Adams’ campaign after Adams had won the primary and was expected to win election to City Hall. The Aug. 11 fundraiser netted $30,900 from 41 donors, including multiple SL Green executives and employees and their wives, campaign finance records show.
Adams, while still Brooklyn borough president, ventured to Manhattan for the Oct. 1, 2021, ribbon-cutting for SUMMIT One Vanderbilt, the public viewing deck at One Vanderbilt 1,210 feet above the streets of New York. Holliday posed for photos with Adams and the mayoral candidate tweeted a photo of himself smiling and giving a thumbs up with the New York skyline in the background.
Adams was elected that November, and six months into his term SL Green was planning to announce the opening of JoJi, an exclusive restaurant with only 18 seats, where the chef’s Omokase dinner costs $375 per person, “excluding beverage, tax and gratuity,” according to the restaurant’s website.
The date was time-sensitive: the 25th anniversary of the firm’s being listed on the New York Stock Exchange was coming up on Sept. 14, 2022. To open by that date, JoJi needed the FDNY’s Bureau of Fire Prevention to sign off on the restaurant’s fire alarm system.
The restaurant went on the DMO list in June 2022 with the issue listed as “FA” for fire alarm, according to a source familiar with the ongoing federal investigation.
By the end of that August, One Vanderbilt Owner LLC — the limited liability corporation controlled by SL Green that owns the 93-story tower adjacent to Grand Central Station — had obtained a license from the State Liquor Authority to sell booze at the basement sushi restaurant. Holliday, another SL Green executive, Neil Kessner, and Boulud are listed in SLA records as principals of the entity that obtained the license.
Two weeks later on Sept. 14, 2022, SL Green announced the opening of JoJi in what they described as a “hidden alcove below” One Vanderbilt.
Holliday proclaimed, “There is no better moment to open the doors to Jōji than the present, an achievement that coincides with SL Green’s 25th Anniversary as an NYSE listed company and the 2nd anniversary of the opening of One Vanderbilt.”
‘A Major Backlog’
On Sunday THE CITY asked the mayor’s office about any communications between Adams or mayoral staff and SL Green or the FDNY about the JoJi inspection. In response, mayoral spokesperson Charles Lutvak claimed the DMO list did not exist.
Lutvak’s statement Sunday contradicted Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh’s assertions in a Friday interview with NBC.
In that interview, Kavanagh confirmed the existence of the list but denied that it was meant to fast-track powerful interests, stating, “That list has always been shared widely with a large number of people and has always been about city interests. What does the city need opened?”
“Over two administrations, we have had a system for dealing with all of these incoming requests,” she said. “Sometimes we’re dealing with a backlog. A major backlog.”
Presented with Kavanagh’s statement, Lutvak did not provide any response regarding any communications between the mayor’s office and SL Green or the FDNY that were connected to JoJi winding up on the DMO list.
On Sunday THE CITY submitted questions to SL Green about their communications with Adams and his team about the JoJi fire alarm system inspection. On Monday Jeremy Soffin of Berlin Rosen, the public relations firm representing SL Green, declined to answer those questions.
Instead he emailed a one-line response, stating, “We were proud to work closely with City Hall and many relevant City agencies to deliver One Vanderbilt and its enormous economic development impact during the pandemic.”
SL Green, meanwhile, has continued providing financial support for Adams’ political aspirations, with executives and staff making nine donations totaling $12,000 to the mayor’s 2025 re-election campaign, including two from Holliday, records through July 2023 show.
Adams’ former chief of staff, Frank Carone, who left City Hall in January, now represents SL Green in its bid to win approval to open a casino in Times Square.
The federal investigation of Adams became public Nov. 2 when the New York Times revealed FBI agents had raided the home of Brianna Suggs, the chief fundraiser for the mayor’s 2021 campaign. Citing a search warrant, the Times said the feds were looking into whether Adams’ received any illegal donations from the Turkish government.
The mayor’s fundraising tactics are also the subject of two recent indictments brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that are now winding their way through the criminal justice system.
In September Bragg filed five indictments alleging a sprawling criminal conspiracy to bribe one of Adams’ top aides, Eric Ulrich, who served as both a senior advisor and then building commissioner for the mayor. Several entities charged with paying bribes to Ulrich in exchange for favors from City Hall — including a restaurateur, a tow truck company owner and a real estate developer —had raised tens of thousands of dollars for Adams’ 2021 campaign.
And in July, a former cop and longtime associate of Adams when the mayor was in the NYPD was charged with raising tens of thousands of dollars in donations for Adams, including multiple pass-through “straw donations” that are prohibited by law.