A fire department official warned his bosses that the commissioner’s demand to fast-track a Hudson Yards FDNY inspection deemed a “top priority of City Hall” would significantly delay more than a dozen other buildings from getting clearance for occupancy, emails obtained by THE CITY show.
Deputy Chief Brian Cordasco pointed out that the expedited examination of the fire alarm system in mega-developer The Related Companies’ newly completed 77-story office tower at 50 Hudson Yards would require six days of inspection performed by a single inspector. That would spread the job out over two weeks.
As a result, this would be devastating for property developers who had already been anticipating scheduled inspections because it would be “necessary to cancel at least 15-20 inspections,” Cordasco warned in an April 7, 2022, internal email to top brass in the Bureau of Fire Prevention.
“This is not only extremely difficult force but FAI [Fire Alarm Inspectors] but extremely unfair to the applicants who have been waiting at least 8 weeks for their inspection,” Cordasco wrote. “Industry opposition will include questions as to why certain projects are advanced while others need to be canceled and pushed back?”
Deputy Chief Kevin Murphy answered that question the next day in an emailed response to Cordasco and other top FDNY officials. In that April 8 email, first reported by THE CITY, Murphy spelled out the behind-the-scenes reason: “The request to expedite Hudson Yards comes from the Office of the Fire Commissioner as a top priority from city hall.”
Murphy acknowledged Cordasco’s concerns about pushback from property owners whose inspections would be canceled, noting, “Any feedback or consequences from rescheduled/canceled inspections or other affected projects can be handled by the OFC if necessary.” OFC is a reference to Office of Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh.
The subject of Murphy’s email was “DMO-Priorities list update,” a reference to the deputy mayor for operations. Joseph Jardin, the former chief of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, the unit that handles fire alarm inspections, has alleged that City Hall used the DMO list to pressure FDNY into moving favored “friends” to the top of the list for inspections. The list began as a “cut red tape” initiative under Mayor Bill de Blasio and continued under Eric Adams, Jardin said in court filings.
Tied to FBI Probe
On Tuesday, Adams and his deputy mayor of operations, Meera Joshi, denied the existence of a DMO list or that big developers got favorable treatment.
“The same way we will handle a large building we will handle a small property owner that’s having a challenge of navigating an entity,” Adams said in response to questions from reporters at City Hall. “This creation of a list? This administration did not create a list. We do not have a Deputy Mayor of Operation list to expedite. We believe in moving bureaucracy.”
Internal FDNY documents say otherwise.
In records related to a lawsuit brought by Jardin alleging he was demoted after complaining about the list and other internal issues, top officials in the Bureau of Fire Prevention are captured discussing multiple requests to speed up inspections for favored entities that are tallied on regularly updated “priority” lists. In some cases the lists are plainly labeled “DMO.”
VIPs put on the lists included major donors to Adams and prominent real estate developers who need City Hall’s assistance on their multimillion-dollar projects and have lobbied top staff in Adams’ office for specific favors since he became mayor in January 2022, records show.
Jardin’s attorney, James Walden, has said Jardin has spoken to the FBI about the list and his concerns about the FDNY favoring entities with City Hall connections. That includes an incident in September 2021, when Adams was still Brooklyn borough president but was widely expected to win election to City Hall. Adams has admitted he forwarded a request from the Turkish government to then-Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro to expedite inspection of a Midtown East building that was to house the Turkish consulate.
At the time, KSK Construction, a Brooklyn contractor with ties to Turkey, had raised more than $69,000 for Adams’ campaign at a May 2021 fundraiser. KSK was mentioned in a federal warrant to search the home of Brianna Suggs, the chief fundraiser for Adams’ 2021 campaign.
The mayor has repeatedly insisted donations to his campaign have never influenced his behavior as an elected official.
The FBI and Manhattan federal prosecutors are, among other things, looking into whether high-profile individuals who raised campaign funds for Adams’ 2021 campaign were given priority for fire inspections, according to a source familiar with the ongoing investigation. And they’re investigating whether Adams’ campaign received illegal “straw donations” from the Turkish government steered through local contributors.
Adams has not been accused of wrongdoing and has insisted he is careful to follow the law and all regulations regarding campaign donations.
The FDNY’s fast-track list contains a wide variety of high-profile beneficiaries, internal FDNY documents show, including one prominent developer who raised tens of thousands of dollars for the mayor’s 2021 campaign.
As first reported by THE CITY, JoJi, a high-end sushi restaurant opened by developer SL Green inside its new Midtown tower One Vanderbilt, made the VIP list in June 2022. The restaurant needed the FDNY to sign off on its alarm system to obtain a temporary certificate of occupancy needed for a planned opening that September.
SL Green’s CEO Marc Holliday had organized an August 2021 fundraiser for Adams’ mayoral campaign that raised $30,900. The next month, the restaurant opened on time. SL Green has not responded to THE CITY’s questions about their communications with the mayor’s office about the FDNY inspection.
Regarding 50 Hudson Yards’ jump-the-line request, Cordasco’s concerns about canceling other inspections to accommodate VIP fast-track requests came in response to an updated list of priorities coming from Kavanagh.
In an email sent on April 5, 2022, Luis Martinez, a special advisor to Kavanagh, sent top Bureau of Fire Prevention brass a “Priorities list update” with VIPs in the top four slots, starting with 50 Hudson Yards.
Next in line was a newly built Ritz Carlton Hotel at 1185 Broadway in Midtown that was nearing completion, followed by the former James A. Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue that was managed by The Related Companies and the real estate powerhouse Vornado. The building was slated to house a huge Facebook/Meta office. After that came Amazon’s soon-to-open New York City base in the former Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue.
In the case of 50 Hudson Yards, executives of The Related Companies — one of the biggest real estate developers in New York City — had for months in early 2022 lobbied top Adams administration officials, including Adams’ then-chief of staff Frank Carone, on the topic of “development of Hudson Yards,” lobbyist records show.
Related and Vornado contributed to an $80 million private sector fund that paid for a signature Adams initiative to get street homeless individuals into shelters. The money, announced in July 2022, steered money to the non-profit group Breaking Ground to hire 100 more outreach workers to encourage individuals to get off the street.
On Wednesday THE CITY asked the mayor’s office for Adams’ response to Cordasco’s concerns about the unfairness of expediting the VIP developer’s project over already scheduled non-VIP inspections. Spokesperson Charles Lutvak declined to answer, but instead noted the FDNY “is doing fire alarm inspections 33% faster this year” and that the Department of Buildings “is completing construction, plumbing, and electrical inspections each within 4 days.”
He added: “This administration has a systematic effort to speed up building and approval processes, called ‘Get Stuff Built.’”
THE CITY also asked the FDNY for a list of all scheduled project inspections that were canceled to accommodate the fast-track inspection of 50 Hudson Yards, and for Kavanagh’s response to Cordasco’s concerns about the unfairness of this request.
The department declined to comment.