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At ESDC, Paula Roy takes on a role overseeing/shepherding Atlantic Yards

There have been changes at the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC, aka Empire State Development, or ESD) regarding the Atlantic Yards project following the July 2013 departure of project director Arana Hankin for a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

(Hankin's Loeb bio states, "She has successfully balanced the demands of private developers with the requests of local communities while ensuring that real estate projects are not stalled." However dubious that claim, shouldn't the latest legal decision require an asterisk regarding how that "success" was achieved?)

Paula Roy steps up

At the bimonthly Atlantic Yards Quality of Life meeting 9/26/13, Derek Lynch, ESDC's manager of community and government relations for Atlantic Yards, announced that Paula Roy would be in charge of construction oversight and business issues.

From ESD web site, 10/3/13
That role that seems to encompass many of Hankin's duties, though now part of a larger portfolio. In other words, the ESDC is not quite replacing Hankin. (Hankin's still listed as project director on the ESD Atlantic Yards web site, however.)

Roy, according to her LinkedIn biography, has been the agency's Vice President of Real Estate since July 2013 and in 2012 was hired as Vice President, Portfolio Management, overseeing a $500 million residential mortgage and commercial loan portfolio and administration of 420 commercial grants to small and mid-size businesses throughout.

She previously served as Deputy Project Manager for the New Domino mega-project in Williamsburg, working for CPC Resources, the for-profit development subsidiary of the non-profit Community Preservation Corporation. 

CPC Resources, which successfully got a zoning change for the property in exchange for ambitious plans for high-rise towers containing 30% affordable housing, was forced to sell the project to Two Trees Management.

Before that, Roy worked in the Special Projects Group and Office of the Chief Operating Officer at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, working on Brooklyn Bridge Park, among other projects.

Another executive

Roy was present at the meeting. Lynch also announced that Marion Phillips III would be overseeing overall community relations for ESDC and thus would have some role at Atlantic Yards. Phillips wasn't at the meeting. Phillips is also a minister in Newark.

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