Whenever powerful people say, “Don’t ask why,” ask “Why not, pray tell?”
As a left-coaster, I lack any pre-existing knowledge base of the the New Jersey geography, political subdivisions, politicians, political alliances, real estate developers, local interest groups, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that would facilitate constructing plausible secenarios to the BridgeTroll scandal. Slogging my way through each potential piece of the puzzle, and there are a lot of pieces to consider in this situtation, I’m still handicapped in being able to assess if the piece is relevant or noise. Not even enough of the ole “gut instinct” to inform me to continue down one path.
That said, Rachel Maddow seems to be similarly challenged and her speculation a bit heavy on logic and light on resonance for even the potential targets. Mayor Sokolich doesn’t have an answer. Karnacki hasn’t offered an explanatory hypothesis for the what happened; only a “hey, look over here at this Fort Lee billion dollar development.” He presented it as if it could be an informed guess or wild-assed guess on his part. My wild-assed guess is that Karnacki received some communication from a “deep throat.” If so, and if I were him, I would try to get in contact with Carl Bernstein for lessons in how to proceed from here. But he could at least try to flesh some of it out.
One somewhat obvious base to cover is the recent history of this billion dollar development. (The older history is adequately covered in a Wikipedia entry.) The inauguration of Mark Sokolich as Mayor of Ft. Lee in January 2008 is a not unreasonable place to start although his interest in, or possibly activities, to develop what was known as the Centuria site likely predated his inauguration. By early 2009 four entities had qualified to submit plans for the rights to develop the property. These were:
Fort Lee Redevelopment Associates (FLRA), a partnership of SJP Residential Properties and Palisades Financial, a real estate investment firm.
Tucker Development and Acquisition Fund LP of Chicago.
A Taubman and Silverstein partnership.
Amerea Development LLC – A J/V: Panepinto Properties of Jersey City and Cheongwon America Inc.
FLRA was interested in the eastern parcel, Tucker the western parcel, and the other two wanted the total site. FRLA and Amerea had a presence in New Jersey. The other two didn’t. That gave FRLA and Amerea some political clout and that is usually a factor in large development projects. Understanding that, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how this would be an asset:
The Amerea Development team is the best choice to revitalize a 15.7-acre vacant parcel because it will fulfill the wishes of two former mayors to revitalize the downtown business district, former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli told residents and borough officials at a public forum Monday.
FRLA modified its original submission to the Ft Lee Planning Board to include the entire site like the submissions from Taubman/Silverstein and Amerea. Tucker’s submission was limited to the western parcel of the site. After reviewing the four submissions, the Planning Board acknowledge that each proposal had strengths and weaknesses. It then approved the FRLA proposal sometime in 2010.. Approved and not awarded because this had never been a public project. It’s private and had always been so.
There was a minor glitch in the approval. Tucker had owned the western parcel since 2005. If the Borough of Ft. Lee thought that Kelo vs. City of New London would require Tucker to sell the property, Tucker disagreed and sued. In January 2011, Ft. Lee lost its effort to have the suit dismissed. Ft. Lee and Tucker settled the dispute that June. FRLA would develop The Modern on the eastern parcel and Tucker would develop Hudson Lights on the westen parcel. The original decision by the Planning Board to approve the FRLA plan had delayed the project by over a year and cost money to litigate. Wisely IMHO, Sokolich and/or the Board chose to settle and move forward after losing the first round in the suit.
FRLA got its remaining ducks in a row and broke ground in October 2012. Tucker, for whatever reason, was slower to act. Exactly when Kushner Real Estate Group (NJ) and Ares Management came on board as partners is unclear, but it may not have been until sometime in 2012. The financing had been projected to be in place by May 2013 but that was delayed. By August, word was that Tucker/Kushner/Ares was near completion on the financing and it was reported on September 17, 2013 (seven days after the reduction of the Ft. Lee toll booths from three to one) that the funding had been finalized.
Coincidental that Christie and the Chairman of the Port Authority Samson met in early August and Bridget Anne Kelly e-mailed “time for traffic in Ft. Lee” on August 13th? (Want to buy a bridge?) But wtf, why would Christie and/or Samson have any interest in interfering with the Hudson Lights project? And if they did, was this the first interference by them or another unidentified interested party or parties? And could there be a plausible scenario where blocked access to the George Washington Bridge would end the Tucker/Kushner/Ares Harbor Lights project?
If there’s any public information available that could in any way answer those questions, I can’t find it. However, a few bits and pieces are worth noting.
That Tucker/Kushner/Ares had difficulty securing financing is evident from the delays. That is further reinforced by where they had to go to get it: Sovereign Santander bank. Were financing difficulties a result of blackballing by the financial community? Who could have accomplished that and who could possibly have gained from it? As to a gain, most obviously FRLA. However, there is zero evidence that FRLA was dissatisfied with the project they acquired and didn’t appear to have the necessary political connections to team Christie. Who else then?
Traubman/Silverstein? Possible. Probably too small for them to be interested.
Panenpinto/Cheongwan? Panepinto Properties of Jersey City seems to have moved on. Plus Joe Panenpinto’s political connections are with Democratic officials and not Republicans. OTOH, he did once partner with Donald Trump on high rise waterfront project in New Jersey. Then again it is The Modern and not Hudson Lights that is a similar to the Panepinto/Trump project. Could the partnership have planned for Panenpinto to focus on the eastern parcel and Cheongwan on the western? It does seem curious to me that the Cheongwon America Inc. website would continue to highlight a Ft. Lee project at or near three years after they were out of the running. Could mean nothing other than their website is a low priority item for them.
[Ed. for correction, clarification, and expansion on Kushner participation, see BrideTroll – Dangling Threads] I would be remiss in not mentioning a couple of things about Kushner Real Estate Group. First: Charles Kushner.
Kushner is a major donor to the Democratic Party, most notably to former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey. In 2005, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, Kushner was convicted of making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering and was sentenced to two years in prison. He has since been released. .
And we all know who was that US Attorney was in 2005. Then Jared Kushner is married to Donald Trump’s daughter. (Real estate developers are an incestuous lot.) Make of it what you will, but it doesn’t lead me anywhere.
There is, however, another instance of political “bad blood” that may link to the BridgeTroll. A couple of things to keep in mind before I get to that possible link. First, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is large and powerful. That’s one thing that Christie understands and has been fully taking political advantage of Christie’s Port Authority – The House That Pork Built. Second, Ft Lee is geographically small and demographically interesting.
Okay, Rachel Maddow did land on a potentially relevant background story, but took it in the wrong direction. There have been ongoing fights between Christie and NJ Dem Senators over Supreme Court appointments. Beginning Christie’s refusal to reappoint John Wallace and the Senate Judiciary Committee refusal to confirm the Christie’s nominee to the court seat that Wallace had held. The the Senators’ move could have been political payback. Yet, there were legitimate questions about Christie’s nominee’s independence, qualifications and family finances. It infuriated Christie (and may not be a stretch to surmise that he put Wisniewski and the other Democrats on the Senate Judicial Committee that rejected his nominee on an “enemies list”), but it also infuriated a voting constituency that Christie was courting.
Subsequently in March 2012, leaders from Bergen County’s Korean community announced they would form a grassroots political action committee to gain an organized voice in politics in the wake of the rejection of attorney Phillip Kwon to the New Jersey Supreme Court by a state legislative body,
Christie smoothed that out three months later by appointing Kwon deputy general counsel of the Port Authority. And:
…Jacqueline Choi was then sworn in as Bergen County’s first female Korean American assistant prosecutor in September 2012.
In 2013 Korean Groups endorsed Christie for re-election. (With the large number of NJ Democrats falling all over themselves to back Christie, it’s not possible to conclude the existence of a direct connection between Kwon’s appointment and Korean-American support for Christie. But …)
Now back to Ft. Lee and the project:
The Panepinto-Cheongwon plan would cluster housing development on the eastern side of the parcel and establish a “nontypical” shopping center with large gathering spaces and pedestrian access to the Fort Lee downtown on the western half of the site.
“Nontypical shopping center?” Wonder what that was. If you didn’t read the Wikipedia overview of Ft Lee (linked earlier), you wouldn’t know that 24% of its population is Korean and Korean-American. A large enough population that there’s a Ft. Lee Koreatown.
Allow me to link all this together with several leaps or imaginary dots. Panepinto was interested in the high rise residential development on the eastern parcel and Cheongwon was interested in the “nontypical” shopping center on the western parcel. Panepinto moved on after losing out to FRLA in 2010, but Cheongwon held out hope that somehow it could still end up with the western parcel. Encouraged by Tucker’s delay problems. Gaining behind the scenes support within the Bergen County and Ft. Lee Korean communities. By 2011 when Tucker prevailed in getting approved for developing the western parcel, they might have had Christie’s ear, but officially, he was powerless in this matter. Unofficially could have thrown some spanners in the financial efforts. Or perhaps it was team Toricelli or an unidentified power-broker lending assistance on this front. Toricelli in it for the money and Christie listening for additional votes in 2013. Once Kushner was in as a partner, Christie might have relished another opportunity to screw with a Kushner. And he was pissed that Kwon was rejected for the Supreme Court. They waited and watched. Hope renewed in May 2013 when Tucker/Kushner failed to deliver the financing. Hope dashed in August as word came out that a lender was almost on board.
It’s a screwy plot – “hail marys” usually are screwy. Odds were against it working, but success or failure nobody would see any team Christie fingerprints on it. Took longer than anticipated to get all the pieces together to create a major bottleneck from Ft. Lee to the George Washington Bridge. And was barely operational at the last moment it could be implemented. (The damn traffic study cover report was supposed to have been completed in advance in case anybody asked.) The reduced access to the George Washington Bridge was only for the eyes of the Tucker/Kushner bank and was supposed to look as if it were a permanent change. Tucker/Kushner would finally throw in the towel and Cheongwon could step in and save the day with a shovel ready, “untypical,” shopping center development project.
Close? Or too much tinfoil?
Update:
Christie, Official Who Arranged Bridge Closures Were Together During Fiasco. Christie, Wildstein, Baroni, and Samson met on 9/11/13, the third day of “traffic” in Ft. Lee.
Update 1/16/14
Okay folks are going there Christie Bridge Jam Inquiry Will Probe $1 Billion Projects.
“The decision to close the lanes, and the response to the closure being ended, seems so disproportionate to just an endorsement that it leads to questions that there might be more involved,” [Assemblyman] Wisniewski said yesterday. “Real estate development involves a lot of money, and when there’s a lot of money involved, there’s usually people doing strange things.”
Oh, and look at what was reported on October 8, 2013. A stalled Tucker Development project in Newark.
…
A nearly $92 million project planned for an empty lot in Newark received a lift from the state yesterday when it was awarded more than $38 million in bond funds and tax breaks.
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Was Tucker Development the intended target for the bridge toll lane closings? Was Tucker expected to deliver something to team Christie?
Update #2: 1/19/14
Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has retained counsel.
Port Authority chairman David Samson, a Christie ally now embroiled in two controversies, has hired former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to represent him in a widening investigation into lane closures at the George Washington Bridge.
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Kind of a big gun, no?
