HUDSON YARDS — The new Hudson Yards/Hell's Kitchen Business Improvement District finally has leaders — and they're mostly the developers building Manhattan's newest neighborhood.
The BID named a 29-member, developer-heavy interim board on Monday, and elected Kevin Singleton, executive vice president of TF Cornerstone, as chairman.
The BID, which covers an area roughly from West 30th Street to West 42nd Street, from Ninth to 11th avenues, will have an initial budget of $1.2 million. The money will go toward maintaining the new Hudson Park and Boulevard, a series of new green spaces, and will also help make improvements to infrastructure in both Hudson Yards and Hell's Kitchen. The bulk of the money will come from the large, new Hudson Yards commercial properties.
All commercial properties will have to pay an assessment into the BID based on their square footage, with nonprofit and residential property owners paying a symbolic $1 per year.
The BID, which contains more than 450 businesses, was approved by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the very end of his term, on Dec. 30, 2013.
Along with Singleton, whose company is developing a 43-floor tower on West 37th Street, the board elected Oskar Brecher of the Moinian Group and Andrew Cantor of the Related Companies as vice chairmen. Related is building the huge Hudson Yards development over the West Side Rail Yards.
"It’s a great privilege to be able to play a role in making the HYHK BID a fully operational reality,” Singleton said in a statement.
While the board is largely a who's who of developers with interest in the area, a few Community Board 4 members made the list, including board chairwoman Christine Berthet and longtime member Jean-Daniel Noland.
The new board is tasked with bringing the BID online, including incorporating the nonprofit that will run it, opening a BID office, hiring an executive director and electing a permanent board.
Once the BID is up and running and the major developments in the neighborhood are built, organizers expect its annual budget to grow to $3 million a year.
