In a move that surely sent shivers of excitement (and perhaps a touch of anxiety) down the spines of New York City’s real estate elite, Mayor Eric Adams graced The Real Deal forum with his presence. Declaring himself the most “pro-housing” mayor in the city’s history – a bold claim considering the historical aversion of politicians to being seen within a ten-block radius of a construction site – Adams unveiled ambitious plans for turning forgotten office spaces and “quiet” empty lots into glorious, tax-generating housing units. He even showcased a rendering of a future Brooklyn skyscraper that appears to be in a heated competition with the Junior’s cheesecake factory for local landmark status. While gently chiding unnamed past administrations for their alleged anti-real estate sentiments, the Mayor assured the assembled developers that his administration is ready to “get the hell out of your way,” presumably after the ribbon-cutting ceremony, of course.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Makes Housing-Related Announcement at the Real Deal NYC Forum 2025
Amir Korangy, Founder and Publisher, The Real Deal: The first time I met Eric Adams, he wasn’t the mayor of New York. He was a politician from Brooklyn. And then some people that I really trusted said that you have to meet with this guy. You have to meet with him. I was like, I’ve never heard of this guy. There’s no chance that he’s going to be mayor. They were like, you have to meet with him.
And instantly after I met with him, I heard him say some really unpopular things. He said he was pro-police. He said he was pro-business. And he said that the reliance of the city to the real estate industry is absolutely a must. And that connection needs to come back.
Because the prior administration thought that real estate was bad. They didn’t want any connection with real estate. Even though real estate puts more into the city and the stakeholders than anybody else. In terms of contributions, in terms of taxes, and everything else. So after I met with him, I was like, this guy really gets it. And he came, and he came to work.
And he worked. And it was very different from the prior administration. And he had some challenges. He had to face some challenges that were deemed unfair by a greater court. You know, he’s running the biggest city in America. The greatest city in the world. So this is a big job with a $140 billion budget. To distract them with what turned out to be nominal stuff was very unfair to all of us and to the city.
I know he’s here. He wants to speak to you guys directly. And I know he’s going to break some news here today. So that’s very exciting. So put your hands together for the mayor of the greatest city in America, in the world, Mayor Eric Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: You know, it’s funny when you hear that New York is the greatest city on the globe. I always remind people when I sit down with my colleagues, mayors from across the entire country. They sit in a room and they debate about who’s number two, who’s number three. And they look over at me and they smile because they realize there’s no place like New York. New York will always be number one. And my motto is there’s two types of Americans. Those who live in New York and those who wish they could. And everyone that’s here, you’re one of the lucky ones.
But this, The Real Deal Conference, our mayor and what he has done and how he has taken the entire publication of this magazine, these forums, these workshops, has really allowed us to be laser focused on development. Development of all kinds, something that I supported in Brooklyn as the county executive. I coined the phrase Build Baby Build. And I will continue to say that that is what is needed in this city.
And when we took office, our housing market specifically was at a real breaking point. There was a lot of uncertainties of the directions that we were going to go and how we could really satisfy the need to house people. We saw numbers at historic lows. Right now we have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate. Functionally zero for affordable use. It was not sustainable to keep in the direction that we saw.
We saw our zoning codes not change since the 1960s. There was a level of stagnation. Everyone was fearful of how did we make bold, focused moves. We had plots of land throughout the city that remained empty and quiet. Nothing was happening with all of the spaces that we saw in the city. And it was clear that the old ways were not working. We had to do something new. We had to be bold about doing it and aggressive about doing it. And change the mindset.
And here’s what was interesting in the city. We had a lot of elected officials on Sunday saying we need to build more housing. But on Monday they were saying not on my block, not in my community, not in my area. More people will focus on how to stop buildings from taking place and how to make sure buildings happen in this city. People did not want to have race. They’re not going to engage in any fight. They’re not going to support real, smart, progressive buildings. In other words, it meant no change. It meant standing focused and still without any movement.
That was not who I am. That is not why you elected me. You elected me to get [] done. And I came into office to do just that. And that’s what we did. We got it done. So what do we have to do? We have to be the next generation of the housing crisis with historical, ambitious moves forward. We knew we had to build more housing and we had to build it fast. So we began to work in every agency, every office, to use every tool and at every level of government to get homes built and to get them fast.
We went to Albany and won a historic housing deal to help build new housing. We went to every agency and issued a landmark executive order to turn all office spaces that were vacant into housing and vacant land into valuable homes. We worked with the City Council to get the City of Yes Opportunity bill, the most historic reform in housing in the history of the city, to push forward an agenda.
We said yes to more housing in neighborhoods. Yes to converting office spaces and creating ADUs. Yes to supporting working class New Yorkers who need a place to live to raise a family. We created a record number of affordable housing two years in a row and in 2024 we created 29,000 affordable and public housing units in 2024 alone.
And we advanced five sweeping neighborhood plans across the city. We turned inaction into inertia. Once we started moving, it started moving on its own. And we showed that government, business, and labor can still come together and do bold, ambitious things. There’s simply no other way to put it. This has been the most pro-housing administration in the history of the city.
Between our neighborhood rezoning and historic City of Yes plan, we have opened the door to over 130,000 homes over the next decade. Just think about that. Let that settle in for a moment. If our neighborhood plans are approved, it is projected that we will create more homes in just four years than in the past 20 years. More homes than under the two previous administrations we will be creating.
We’re seeing the results of the work that we put in place all across the five boroughs. We’re seeing it in the Bronx where our first neighborhood plan will bring thousands of new homes and jobs to the neighborhood. We’re seeing it at 100 Gold Street. Next to the Brooklyn Bridge, we will be developing an aging office building into a new housing project. And that is what we mean when we say we’re going to do it now.
We’re also seeing it on city-owned land in the heart of downtown Brooklyn. I want you to see this first image. Today, this is 395 Flatbush. Outdated office building from the 1970s. But soon, it will be the future of housing in New York City. In its place, we’re going to build 1,200 new units of high-density mixed-use housing. All on top of one of the biggest transit hubs in the city. The new 395 Flatbush will be a major addition to the skyline, towering high as the second tallest building in Brooklyn.
We’re setting a new standard of urban design and development in the heart of New York’s most prosperous and populous borough. We’re grateful to the developers, Rabina and Park Tower Group, the development team behind the project, for providing the renderings you’re about to see. And this is exactly the type of public-private partnership we want with the development community to build more housing.
This week, this ambitious project took the next major step forward. And today, I want to show you what we hope it will look like when we’re done. Let’s look at this image, folks. Look at that project. Now, I know you’re not the developers, but you can show them some love. That’s a beautiful project. Let’s give them a hand.
What we’re seeing here is not only the future of housing, it’s the proof that our housing strategy works. This project will be built on a city-owned site, use tools we run from Albany, and take advantage of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. And because we’re opening up such strong sites for development, we’re able to do this without any city capital subsidies, letting us invest that money in other critical projects. It is the kind of project that takes work at every level of government coming together to make it possible.
But more importantly, it will be home. Think about it for a moment. At this location that you see behind me, there’s the Q train. It’s also Brooklyn Hospital. It’s also Fort Greene Park. It’s a new couple that gets married and have a child. The baby is delivered at Brooklyn Hospital. They walk down the block to their home, and they just started their career. They will take the Q train, which is near the hub of transportation, and they will allow their children to play in a beautiful park. This is what you call building neighborhoods all together in a comprehensive way. It’s a home for New Yorkers.
Finally, let’s see what this project will look like from the skyline. Look at that project. It’s a beautiful building right across the street from Juniors, so you can put on a couple of pounds and work out in the gym when you get that cheesecake. Projects like these and this one are possible because of work like ours, because of developers and businesses, because of local leaders who are willing to fight for them. They are what makes this the most pro-housing administration in history.
395 Flatbush is a critical piece of our efforts to get the people homes they need. And you know why we’re doing it? Because I made my decision when I was borough president and then became the mayor. I’m here to support my developers and not fight with my developers. We need you. This is a symbiotic relationship, and government needs to get the hell out of your way and allow you to build the projects that you need to be building in this city.
And it’s the symbol of what is happening all across this city. We have thrown open the doors to new solutions and new housing by using every tool and every partner. We are planning, funding, and building new housing as fast as we can, converting unused office space, and utilizing city properties and more housing and creating a more affordable, abundant future for every New Yorker. The key to the front door is the key to the solutions that we are unlocking, unlocking the American dream by having a house for people to go into and live.
We’re not just building more homes. We are building a legacy of the most pro-housing administration in our history, putting affordable housing within the reach of every New Yorker. And the only way we can do it effectively, the only way people will come and live in this great city. First two questions people always ask, how good are the schools, how safe is the community?
Partnering with our housing initiative is making sure the city remains the safest big city in America, and we’ve done that. We’ve watched historical decreases in crimes. We’re attracting people and individuals back to our neighborhoods. We’re watching the expansion of our city. We’re bringing jobs back here. We have more jobs in the city in the city’s history. Subway crime has reached low levels. Shootings and homicides have decreased. We’re seeing disorder turned into order. Go look at other cities and see how people sleep on the streets and camp. Homelessness is out of control. Not in New York.
This is the greatest city in the globe in the greatest country in the globe. And the reason we are is not because of what’s on Broadway, but what we do our way. It’s the people that make it the diversity of the city. Every neighborhood of the globe comes to New York to get it right. So I thank you for what you’re doing. Continue to live by the motto, build, baby, build. Thank you very much.
Korangy: Thank you. You guys, mayor of New York City, you’ve got to do something about it. Come on. That’s good. Mayor, I’m just going to ask you two quick questions. You got the City of Yes passed. Do you give credit to the City Council for doing that, or do you think they watered it down?
Mayor Adams: Well, it was clear that any time you go through these negotiations in another house, another part of the city’s government, you’ve got to negotiate. We put $5 billion into building our infrastructure, and that was very important. So it was a real win. We knew we had to build our sewers. We knew we had to build out other areas that needed to support the building that we’re doing. So we see it as a good give, so we can finish the project. This is a historical project. A lot of people didn’t want to do it, but we got it done, and it’s important to do so.
Korangy: And you’ve got to work with the City Council, because they can really ham up your agenda if they wanted to.
Mayor Adams: In many ways, as we see some of the battles we have around public safety, battles we have around development, they’re real battles, but we fortify. I always say you can’t be judged by only what you’ve done, but what you have overcome. We have not lost one step in our movement to bring the city back.
Korangy: And President Trump announced that he’s going to cut federal housing, and that’s going to impact the city in some way with vouchers. How are you guys bracing for that?
Mayor Adams: We’re going to continue reaching out to the White House and state. Let’s look and see what we’re doing here. Those vouchers are important and part of the overall housing plan, everything from public housing to the voucher program. These are important to help subsidize New Yorkers so they can get into the housing that they need.
We put $25 billion into our housing plan, and we wanted to make sure that we don’t lose that and take a step back so we can communicate with the White House and say, this funding is smart money to put working-class people into housing.
Korangy: So, last question, something that impacts a lot of these guys, the FAIR Act that was recently approved. You were against it, so you didn’t want that, and obviously the industry didn’t want that either. Why not veto it?
Mayor Adams: Because in the City Council, if you get a three-fourth majority, you can override the veto. And so once my intergovernmental affairs, they do an analysis and said they have more than enough for the three-fourth majority. If you veto and they override your veto, they walk around with an S on their chest acting like they’re Superman, and I’m not trying to give them the cape to fly. Stay on the ground, I’m the mayor.
Korangy: Mayor of New York City, still here, still working for you guys. Thank you, mayor.
May 7, 2025 New York City Hall , Manhattan
Sources: NYC.gov , Midtown Tribune
Big New York news