The protege of Mayor Eric Adams put in charge of city leases — who last month vacationed with a top broker for Cushman & Wakefield — approved three multi-million dollar lease deals arranged by that real estate firm, city officials confirmed Tuesday.
In late September Jesse Hamilton, deputy commissioner for real estate in the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), traveled to Japan with a group that included Diana Boutross, the Cushman executive who handles the firm’s interactions with DCAS.
Upon their return at JFK Airport, a representative of the Manhattan District Attorney seized Hamilton’s phone as part of an ongoing investigation of corruption at City Hall. Cushman & Wakefield spokesperson would not say whether Boutross’ phone was also seized.
On Tuesday Councilmember Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) opened a hearing to question DCAS Commissioner Louis Molina on Hamilton’s handling of leases since Adams appointed him in the summer of 2022. Hamilton did not show up at the hearing although the committee Restler chairs on government operations had summoned him.
In response to questions Restler sent last week, Molina Monday stated that DCAS did not pay for Hamilton’s trip to Japan, but also did not ask Hamilton who funded his travel expenses in Japan, stating, “DCAS is not involved in personal employee travel.”
Because Hamilton traveled to Japan with an executive of a firm without clarity about who paid for his travel, Restler asked whether Hamilton or anyone at DCAS had requested a waiver from the city Conflicts of Interest Board to sign off on the travel. Another member of the group with Hamilton in Japan was Adam Clayton Powell IV, a lobbyist who had pressed Hamilton on behalf of another client earlier this year. Also on the trip was Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Mayor Eric Adams’ chief advisor.
Molina responded that because Hamilton’s trip was not done for business purposes, “DCAS did not consult the COIB regarding this trip.”
He did, however, provide for the first time details of Hamilton’s approval of three Cushman-arranged leases, including the biggest one DCAS has signed off on in the last five years, a 21-year lease to rent 641,000 square feet of space to relocate the city Administration for Children’s Services one half block south from 150 William St. to 110 William St. in lower Manhattan.
Cushman gets paid by the landlord based on a percentage of the annual rent. In the 110 th William St. lease, the first year’s rent comes to $28 million. Under the lease approved by Hamilton, the city has also agreed to reimburse the landlord for more than $42 million in renovation costs there.
The hearing held by Restler and Councilmember Christopher Marte (D-Manhattan) also focuses on a pending lease arrangement to relocate the Department for the Aging into 80,000 square feet at 14 Wall St., a tower owned by Alexander Rovt, a billionaire who steered $15,000 from his family to Mayor Adams’ legal defense fund. Sources say Hamilton intervened after lower-level DCAS staffers had already signed off on renting the space to relocate Department for the Aging from a city-owned building to 250 Broadway, a privately owned office tower that already houses multiple city agencies.
The terms of that lease have yet to be finalized, but this transaction was arranged by a second brokerage DCAS relies on, CBRE. Shortly before Hamilton’s involvement in steering the lease to 14 Wall St., two CBRE executives each made donations of $2,100 — the maximum allowed — to Mayor Adams’ 2025 re-election campaign.
