Editor’s note: TRD’s great mayoral debate

Welcome to the post-Bloomberg era. Real estate has clearly boomed under Mayor Mike, but will the good times end when he leaves office at the end of the year?

The Real Deal is bringing together Bloomberg’s would-be successors at a Sept. 16 forum at Baruch College to find out what’s on their real estate agendas.

We also take an extensive look at where New York’s mayoral wannabes stand on real estate’s key issues inside this issue.

The candidates vying to replace Bloomberg have taken a range of stances on development, real estate taxes and industry regulation.

For example, Democrat Bill De Blasio, the public advocate, says that “the relationship between the city and its developer community needs a ‘reset’.”

He’s been pretty strident in how he will reverse Bloomberg’s legacy. (That legacy includes rezoning of a third of the city and paving the way for a staggering 40,000 new buildings.)

“Towering, glitzy buildings marketed to the global elite is not the type of development New Yorkers are looking for,” De Blasio told TRD. “I look forward to working with the real estate community to spur the development, in all five boroughs, of real affordable housing.”

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, Republican Joe Lhota, former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, told TRD, “It’s unfair to criticize Mayor Bloomberg, who has been concerned with how to deal with the growth of New York City. We are expecting an influx of another million New Yorkers and we must prepare our infrastructure and housing to accommodate that growth.”

Interestingly, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn — who falls somewhere between De Blasio and Lhota politically — would aim to build 40,000 new middle-income housing units in addition to 40,000 currently planned new low-income units over the next decade. This, she says, is quadruple the current rate of construction, and by far the largest middle-class housing program since Mitchell-Lama.

So far, the city’s three main dailies — the New York Times, the New York Post and the Daily News — have all endorsed Quinn in the Democratic mayoral primary, and the Post and the Times have endorsed Lhota in the Republican primary. (Both primaries will be held on Sept. 10.) We present a roundup of what the pundits are saying and who they’re backing.

For more information on the forum, which will be held at Baruch’s Performing Arts Center at 5:30 p.m., go to TheRealDeal.com. Tickets are $25. The future of New York City real estate — and New York itself — is what’s on the table.

In other election coverage, we look at The Real Estate Board of New York’s aggressive spending. The REBNY-backed PAC Jobs for New York plans to spend up to $10 million on local City Council races. We examine what it means in “REBNY’s races”.

Election season is also prime time to discuss how the goals of the city and industry align. (The debate about “poor doors” — the separate entrances used by tenants of affordable apartments in market-rate condo buildings — seems to be one flashpoint in this discussion.) But what’s good for the city and the industry are not mutually exclusive. There is — or should be — a way to build a city for everyone, including the real estate industry. Given the importance of real estate for the city’s economy, that fact can’t be left out of the conversation.

Elsewhere in the issue, we’ve got a story on real estate’s new ruling class — the unprecedented new wave of 30- and 40-something CEOs taking over big industry firms. (This younger group includes one firm head who wears a hoodie to work.) Don’t miss the story, “Real estate’s new ruling class”.

We also examine the biggest foreign buyers of real estate — ni hao China, auf Wiedersehen Germany — and examine how Zillow’s $50 million purchase of StreetEasy could shake up the New York market.

Lastly, with a sale or IPO imminent, we unravel the complicated ownership structure of the Empire State Building — and reveal many owners of the iconic building that have never been identified.

Enjoy the issue and see you at the debate.