State loses environmental cleanup case over Sheldon Solow’s Con Ed development site

Developer Sheldon Solow and his planned East Side development on the former Con Ed site

The state is now faced with paying an estimated $250 million in benefits to developer Sheldon Solow, whose $4 billion, 9.2-acre East Side development project on a former Consolidated Edison site is considered a brownfield cleanup project, after a state appellate court decision yesterday. An old state development program gave developers building on polluted sites a proportion of development costs, but it was amended last year to limit those benefits. Solow had applied to take part in the program, and was accepted, under the Pataki administration, but the Spitzer administration reversed that decision, prompting Solow to sue for his $250 million award. The state appellate court decision upheld a lower court decision in Solow’s favor, denying the Department of Environmental Conservation its appeal. [NYO]