Cleared of bribery charges, Malinsky launches new retail firm

Aaron Malinsky, the retail developer cleared last year of charges that he bribed State Senator Carl Kruger with more than $472,000, is returning to real estate with a new firm. Malinsky is launching Curbcut Urban Partners with his two adult children, Carolyn and Benjamin, to focus on retail opportunities in “under-served” parts of the city.

Malinsky was formerly a partner at PA Associates, which was behind the CityPoint project in Downtown Brooklyn and the redevelopment of Admirals Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard before it was dumped from those developments amid the Kruger scandal. Though prosecutors had initially charged that Malinsky paid Kruger to get approval for these projects and others, those charges were dropped in December because they couldn’t find criminal intent.

“I have been 100% exonerated with no conditions, whatsoever,” Malinsky told Crain’s.

Curbcut will be strictly family owned, according to Malinsky, who said he has already achieved success for retail businesses in non-traditional markets. For example, he had a hand in transforming the River Plaza, off West 225th Street in the Bronx, into a 270,000-square-foot mall with several notable big-box retailers (note: correction appended). Malinsky is currently an investor in the 130,000-square-foot Throggs Neck Shopping Center scheduled to open in the Bronx next summer with Target as an anchor tenant, Crain’s said. [Crain’s] — Adam Fusfeld