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The city’s Buildings Department has ordered a halt to construction work at a Midtown hotel owned by a woman who donated to Mayor Eric Adams, after a news report revealed that the project had been allowed to proceed despite multiple problems.
A stop-work order for the hotel at 317-319 West 35th St. was issued Wednesday, after a “miscommunication” between different city agencies had allowed construction to continue even though the hotel was being built in violation of a city commitment to build housing at that site, DOB spokesman Andrew Rudansky said in a statement.
The city’s reversal follows a May report by The City that exposed how the hotel’s developer, Weihong Hu, had raised tens of thousands of dollars for Adams during his 2021 campaign and then benefited from millions of dollars in city contracts following his election. The article described how Hu, in 2021, began building a 25–story hotel on a Midtown block despite prior assurances from the city’s housing department that the site needed to include affordable housing.
After spotting the violation, the Buildings Department under Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a stop-work order in March 2021. But after Adams took office, Hu enlisted the Rev. Alfred Cockfield III — a friend of the mayor’s — to press for the order to be lifted, and she got her wish by November 2022 when construction was allowed to proceed, The City reported.
Now, DOB acknowledges that the 35th Street project did not receive all the approvals required for a project that involves demolishing residential units. DOB spokesman Rudansky said the department “was made aware of potential approval issues by our partners” at the Housing Preservation and Development Department, and conducted an audit in response.
“The owners and their applicant of record will be required to demonstrate full compliance with zoning prior to resuming work at the site,” Rudansky said. He added that city agencies are now “discussing ways to prevent this miscommunication from happening in the future,” potentially by creating one unified certification document from HPD.
Hu’s hotel project blindsided neighborhood leaders, including the West Side’s Community Board 4, which had fought to secure the commitment to include housing at the site, The City reported.
An attorney for Hu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rudansky did not say whether the developer, who previously demolished a pair of tenement-style apartment buildings on the site, would now be required to include housing in her project. The new audit found that Hu had never gotten a certification from HPD showing that it would be impossible to rehabilitate existing apartments on the site through any government-funded program
Hu must “demonstrate compliance” with that rule to resolve the objection, according to DOB.
Adams, responding to reporters’ questions at a press conference last week, said he “didn’t intercede at all” on the project.
“People call city government all the time to try to get through the bureaucracy,” he said. “Everyone has to follow the rules.”
Hu has benefited in other ways during the Adams administration, including by landing lucrative contracts to shelter migrants at other hotels she owns, The City reported.
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Nick Garber , 2024-06-17 18:38:49
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