When Marc Shaw was at City Hall he was a veteran advisor who Mayor Michael Bloomberg relied on to solve complex financial puzzles and pull off bold deals.
With 25 years of New York government experience under his belt, including a five-year stint running the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Shaw was an important asset to a novice mayor trying to navigate political circles in New York City and Albany.
Now the tables have turned, and Shaw, 53, is learning the ins and outs of New York City’s tight-knit real estate world as the executive vice president for strategic planning at Extell Development Company. And while Shaw, who has been at Extell for about a year and a half, made headlines when he left his post as first deputy mayor — the second in command at City Hall — he has not talked much publicly about his new career since leaving. But, so far, his tenure at Extell has been marked by a number of high-profile projects, including the company’s most recent bid to redevelop the Hudson Yards site.
“On one level it’s the same job, which is being a strategic advisor to your boss,” he said during an interview in his seventh floor corner office in Extell’s Midtown headquarters. “At that level it’s very similar to the role I had with the mayor. The difference is that in this role I’m the one who’s on the learning curve, learning a new business.”
Shaw, who almost always worked behind the scenes in the Bloomberg administration, but was recently thrust into the spotlight as chairman of the commission studying congestion pricing, was sought out by Extell CEO’s Gary Barnett.
Barnett built Extell from the ground up by first quietly concentrating on as-of-right buildings and then bursting into the upper stratosphere of the development scene with more controversial moves like bidding on the Atlantic Yards site and erecting the twin towers known as the Ariel on the Upper West Side.
“I figured if he could run the city, he could help run our company,” Barnett told The Real Deal. “He’s very savvy, he’s picked up the real estate business amazingly quickly. He knows everybody, and everybody likes him. He’s one of the few people in the city who everybody likes and respects — Republicans, Democrats, city, state.”
That fact that Barnett sought out Shaw speaks volumes about how crucial it has become for the city’s major developers to bring on staff who know how to navigate city government.
A number of high-level Bloomberg staffers have fled for the real estate business. Josh Sirefman, who served as interim head of the Economic Development Corporation, for example, is now at Brookfield Properties. Kate Ascher, also of the EDC, is at Vornado Realty. Jordan Barowitz, a Bloomberg press secretary, is at the Durst Organization. Vishaan Chakrabarti, of the Department of City Planning, is at the Related Companies and is the point person on the Moynihan Station redevelopment. And Jim Whelan, the chief of staff to outgoing deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, announced last month that he was leaving the administration to go to Muss Development.
Barnett noted that when he hired Shaw, Extell had no business with the city. He said most companies that bring on administration staffers are, more than anything, looking for people who know how government functions.
While Shaw was prohibited under city guidelines from communicating with anyone in the Bloomberg administration for a year after leaving office, and the others were barred from dealing with their individual offices, they are all assets the second they walk in the door.
Most recently Shaw has been important to Extell in its bid to develop the Hudson Yards (a bid that several of his former colleagues are now trying to win for their respective development firms). He not only worked with members of the Hudson Yards Development Corporation during his days in government, but also served as executive director of the MTA, which owns the land and will be choosing the site developer, from 1996 to 2001.
Extell’s unique bid — the only one that proposes forgoing building over the rail yards and instead uses suspension technology to cover it — was initially considered a long shot. But it has received some positive architectural reviews for providing the most open space and for being the least disruptive to the active Long Island Rail Road hub below.
Shaw said he did not come up with the idea but that he has a strong sensitivity to all the MTA’s issues. “I wouldn’t take credit for the idea,” he said. “I would take credit for being part of the decision-making process that led to the idea.”
When asked about the description of Extell as an underdog in the Hudson Yards bid, he laughed and said, “It’s a growing firm that’s starting to play with the big boys, quote unquote. There is always jealously of bringing new kids into the game.”
A professor of urban policy and planning at New York University, Mitchell Moss, who is also a Bloomberg advisor, praised Shaw and described him as the architect of the mayor’s financial strategy. He also said that the exodus of government officials for the real estate world is about knowledge, not access to the right people.
“Everything in New York requires some degree of public approval, whether it’s meeting the zoning regulations, getting some kind of variance, dealing with landmarks or coming up with some kind of creative financing,” Moss said. “Hiring someone for a half a million dollars who understands government is a small investment if you’re building a $2 billion project.”
For the record, Shaw declined to reveal his salary. He laughed and said, “it’s one of the joys about being in the private sector.”
Barowitz called Shaw a “master of complex deals,” citing projects he has been credited with orchestrating, like winning mayoral control of the school system, the refinancing of the $2.5 billion in city debt and the takeover of private bus lines in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
At City Hall, Shaw, who lives in Queens and is married with three kids — ages 14, 19 and 22 — was known for his introverted and private style. In 2003, the New York Times noted that many city commissioners were upset that he didn’t meet with them enough, and others said it was hard to get him to return their calls.
Rather than working in the open bullpen the mayor sat in, Shaw preferred a private office in the basement of City Hall and was often sighted conducting business on his cell phone outside while smoking his signature cigars (he had one tucked into his breast pocket when he met with The Real Deal).
And now, despite the fact that he is working for a developer that has erected some of the highest-end luxury condominium towers in the city, Shaw has opted to stay in his house in Queens, which he described as “a regular middle-class house in a middle-class part of Queens on a little 45-by-100 plot with a little backyard.”
When asked if he would consider moving into one of Extell’s luxury condos, he initially said he didn’t have any plans to. When pressed, he said: “Ask me when my kids grow up. I still have two kids at home.”