On the heels of a scathing audit report released today, State Senator Jose Peralta joined City Comptroller John Liu in calling on the Bloomberg Administration to renegotiate the city’s lease with the Marriott Marquis Hotel.
Located on a prime tract of Manhattan real estate—Broadway between 45th and 46th Streets—the hotel was built on city-owned land in 1982. Comptroller Liu’s audit found that new terms the city agreed to in 1998, including a drastic cut in rent, will end up costing taxpayers at least $344.9 million by the time the lease expires in 2017.
“While this administration did not negotiate these extraordinarily unfavorable terms for the city,” Senator Peralta said, “it needs to act on behalf of taxpayers before the Marriott Marquis is in a position to buy city land for perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars below market rate when the lease expires in four years.”
In a letter to city Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky, Senator Peralta wrote, “EDC is well within its rights to renegotiate this lease in a manner that reflects the fair market value of the land and complies with your fiduciary duty to New York City taxpayers.”
Senator Peralta, the ranking Democrat on the State Senate’s Labor Committee, also pointed out that the Marriott Marquis “is a non-union hotel which does not offer the same wage security, benefits, or immigrant protections as its union counterparts.”
Senator Peralta said he will circulate the letter to the EDC among his Senate colleagues for their signature.
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