Gary LaBarbera is at war with wind and shadows.
These are the villains in opposition stories about a Hudson Yards megaproject that the labor leader’s unions would build, and he is calling bullshit.
“It’s a ruse,” he said in an interview. “They just don’t want development.”
LaBarbera and members of his Buildings and Construction Trades Council are rallying Thursday to call out the Friends of the High Line for its opposition to Related Companies’ plans for the western portion of Hudson Yards.
LaBarbera told me repeatedly on Wednesday that this is not about Related Companies’ license for a casino. But the developer and Wynn Resorts’ bid for one of three state casino licenses is the lynchpin of its plan for 1,500 apartments, a resort hotel, 2 million square feet of office space, a public school and day care.
For LaBarbera’s members the project means 30,000 construction jobs and then more than 4,000 positions for building service workers. He called Friends of the High Line a “very elite, influential group” that is putting “shadows and gusty winds before 34,000 career opportunities.”
“They are simply trying to control the destiny of the West Side,” he said.
Friends of the High Line says this mischaracterizes its position. The group says it doesn’t oppose development, just Related’s change of plan, which includes a casino and taller, denser towers.
“We want the Western rail yards developed. The Building Trades Council wants the Western rail yards developed,” a spokesperson for the group’s campaign, Protect the High Line, said in a statement. “And that would be happening right now if Related and Wynn hadn’t secretly changed their original plans without community input.”
(Related has said that it has made substantive changes to the plan based on input from the group, and that the High Line “is not remotely under threat by our proposal.” It accuses the group of engaging in a disinformation campaign.)
In an op-ed in the New York Daily News, Alan Van Capelle, the Friends group’s executive director, wrote that Related’s plan would “block views of the city, shroud the High Line and other open spaces in shadows for most of the day and upset other community assets.” The Times reported in July that “gusty winds” were also a concern.
It is LaBarbera’s job to fight for members of his umbrella group for construction unions, though more often that entails calling out developers for failing to hire unions, not targeting a nonprofit that designed a park.
But what also makes this development fight unusual is that if you go back more than five years, LaBarbera was fighting Related over its plan to use some nonunion workers at 50 Hudson Yards and the western yards. The two reached a truce in 2019.
LaBarbera said Thursday’s rally is just the start of a broader fight. He said he wants his organization to be the “counterbalance” to opponents of union projects like 960 Franklin Avenue. He said Brooklyn is his next stop.
What we’re thinking about: What changes will the City Council demand to approve the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: Graffiti on the upper floors of the long-stalled condo project at 45 Park Place in Lower Manhattan spells out “RAMS” in bright yellow, bulbous letters. A similar image (though just in black paint and with more lettering) adorns the top floors of another pillar of arrested development: 161 Maiden Lane. I reached out to what appears to be the anonymous artist’s Instagram and got a response: This wasn’t a coordinated statement on luxury development, but a matter of opportunity: The projects were stalled or abandoned for some time, and highly visible.
Elsewhere in New York…
— Jesse Hamilton, who oversees real estate leases at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, steered a city lease to Alexander Rovt’s 14 Wall Street, Politico New York reports. AmTrust Realty Corp. initially won the bid to relocate the city’s Department for the Aging to 250 Broadway, but Hamilton intervened. He even went as far as to order staff to stop communicating with AmTrust, saying that he spoke with the DFTA commissioner, who indicated a preference to move to 14 Wall Street.
— In case you missed it, socialist Assembly member Zohran Mamdani is joining the 2025 mayoral race. Mamdani has pledged to appoint members to the Rent Guidelines Board who would freeze rents for four years, the City reports. The Rent Stabilization Law requires members to consider a whole host of factors when determining rent increases each year, including the economic condition of housing. I know a lot of landlords would have something to say about the degree to which the board currently does this, but the board is supposed to hold hearings and reach a conclusion on what is an appropriate increase, not agree upfront on how it will vote.
— Roughly 2,500 people are expected to show up for the parade for New York Liberty’s WNBA championship, Gothamist reports. The celebration begins Thursday morning and starts at the “Canyon of Heroes,” on Broadway between Battery Place and City Hall in Manhattan.
Closing Time
Residential: The priciest residential sale Wednesday was $13.5 million for a co-op unit at 640 Park Avenue in Lenox Hill. The seller paid $20 million for the unit in 2012.
Commercial: The largest commercial sale of the day was $35 million for an 11,250-square-foot commercial retail space at 141 Berry Street in North Williamsburg. The seller paid $990,000 for the property in 2005.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $9.95 million for a 4,025-square-foot condominium at 140 West 81st Street on the Upper West Side. The Modlin Group has the listing.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building application filed was 68,852 square feet for a proposed four-story school at 801 Co-Op City Boulevard in the Bronx. Permits were filed by Jonathan Imani on behalf of Azimuth Development Group. — Matthew Elo