With a new commissioner at the helm of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Mamdani administration has also replaced senior leaders and, in some cases, filled long-vacant roles within the agency.
Adam Phillips is the newly named first deputy commissioner and chief diversity officer at HPD, a role previously held by Ahmed Tigani before he took over as acting commissioner of the agency under then-Mayor Eric Adams in March 2025. (Tigani left HPD after Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed him head of the Department of Buildings.)
Phillips most recently worked for Strada Ventures, an affordable housing and development consulting firm, and before that worked at HPD as deputy director of the multifamily housing rehabilitation and green housing preservation loan programs.
During an interview, Phillips noted that his work on the other side of the table will inform the agency’s work to close deals with developers as quickly as possible.
Patrick Love, who most recently worked on financing multifamily housing for the state’s Division of Homes and Community Renewal, is HPD’s deputy commissioner of development. He replaced Kim Darga, who started at HPD as a project manager in 2007.
Developers of subsidized housing deal with Love’s office, which coordinates city funding, tax exemptions and how these funding sources work alongside federal tax credits and bonds. Love said part of his role with the state’s housing regulator was making the state’s priorities clear to developers, and he plans to do the same at the city level. (A perennial complaint from developers is that HPD’s project pipeline is opaque, and as projects rack up costs while waiting to close on financing, developers are unclear where they are in the queue.)
The agency has also hired Celeste Hornbach, who previously served as assistant comptroller for housing policy under city Comptroller Brad Lander, as a senior advisor working across HPD’s different divisions.
As of February, the agency has a vacancy rate of 14.1 percent, with 2,463 positions filled of 2,867 budgeted for fiscal year 2026, according to a budget report by the City Council.
Most of the deputy commissioner positions are filled, but various assistant and associate commissioner positions remain vacant. In December, Alicka Ampry-Samuels joined HPD as deputy commissioner of asset and property management, a position that had been vacant for three years. Ampry-Samuels, who last served as a regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s New York and New Jersey office, oversees the city’s affordable housing portfolio.
As a candidate, the mayor pledged to build 200,000 housing units over the next decade. But he’s expected to release his housing plan in May, when (hopefully) housing production goals will become clearer.
What we’re thinking about: Friday marks the mayor’s first 100 days in office. What are you watching for in the next 100 days? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: The National Action Network has new headquarters at the Faison Firehouse Theater on Hancock Place, according to the New York Times. The organization left its longtime home on 145th Street after landlord Bruce Teitelbaum threatened to evict the group.
Elsewhere in New York…
— Mayor Zohran Mamdani nominated Lisa Kersavage as chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Kersavage has served as executive director of the Landmarks since 2019. Her predecessor, Sarah Carroll, retired in August after more than three decades with the agency. Kersavage is following Carroll in another way: Per the New York Times, Carroll was the first chair to serve who had previously worked as a staffer at Landmarks. The mayor’s announcement comes exactly one year after the Times reported Carroll was leaving.
— Vanessa Aronson faces an easy road to Alex Bores’ open Assembly seat representing the Upper East Side, City & State reports. Aronson doesn’t have any Democratic opponents, and any Republican opponents’ chances seem slim (the district voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris in the presidential election).
— ICYMI, the mayor will host a rally on Sunday to mark his first 100 days in office. Here’s what these early days have meant for real estate.
Closing Time
Residential: The largest residential sale Wednesday was $14.5 million for a 4,236-square-foot condominium at 215 Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side. The Hudson Advisory Team at Compass had the listing. The unit last traded for $16 million in 2017.
Commercial: The largest commercial sale was $38 million for a 64,650-square-foot, 43-unit apartment building at 525 Union Avenue in North Williamsburg. An LLC tied to Witnick Real Estate Partners sold the property to an LLC tied to TAA Apparel Inc.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $27 million for a 12,728-square-foot condominium at 90 Franklin Street in Tribeca. Emily Beare and Lexi Alper with CORE Marketing Group have the listing.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 26,059-square-foot, three-story project with 18 units at 428 97th Street in Bay Ridge. Francisco Nunez filed the permit on behalf of Shiraz Sanjana of RNS Holdings.
— Matthew Elo