A changing of the guard is a good moment for reflection. Last June, it was announced that Rob Speyer would be stepping down as chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York and be replaced by Bill Rudin.
Speyer got the job in 2013, five years and a bizarro world ago—and that crack isn’t strictly about the national political scene.
New York City is a different place than it was under the beginning of the Speyer regime. Michael Bloomberg was mayor. Steven Spinola was the long-serving president of REBNY. Sheldon Silver was the Speaker of the New York State Assembly. Nobody had heard of WeWork.
Different, right?
We spoke with Rudin and asked what his plans were for the organization.
Liam La Guerre looks at the various milestones in the Speyer presidency, from tapping John Banks to become Spinola’s replacement, to helping steer the city into the next incarnation of its 421a program, Affordable New York.
Speaking of Affordable New York, it has been one of the things that the 122-year-old trade organization has lobbied most fiercely for, and now that a year has passed since the new legislation has been signed into law, Aaron Short explores how the program has been panning out.
Of course, REBNY is not an organization that is strictly defined by the laws it advocates. It is also a presence in the courtroom. Lauren Elkies Schram examines the six legal cases that the trade organization has lent its legal expertise to over the last year.
One of REBNY’s big victories of last year was the fact that the City Council tore up the commercial rent tax for businesses whose rents are less than $500,000 per year, which Matt Grossman reports on.
An organization like REBNY will no doubt be facing unforeseen questions and problems including a booming population and a razor thin vacancy rate; so if they’ll pardon a little persnickety advice on our part, Rebecca Baird-Remba examines at the issues that will be on the horizon.
Baird-Remba also got a look at the board’s annual report, the highlights of which we reported here.
Of course, not everybody is in love with the board. Rey Mashayekhi looked at its most persistent critic, labor advocate Ray Rogers.
REBNY, and the industry it champions is all about data. Mashayekhi found out where, physically, the old archived data is being housed (LaGuardia Community College, as it turns out).
Finally, our yearly REBNY issue also delves into who is being honored this year and why. The honorees at this year’s banquet include Rudin Management’s Gene Boniberger; Richard LeFrak; Cushman & Wakefield’s Ron Lo Russo; C&W’s Joanne Podell; U.S. Senator Charles Schumer; outgoing president Speyer; and Stribling & Associates’ Elizabeth Stribling.
—Max Gross