Real Estate Interests, It Certainly Does

As they say, write what you know:

Rebecca Katz, a former aide in the de Blasio administration, is now working with the developer, Fortis Property Group LLC, to persuade a skeptical community to support one of the plans.

Mr. de Blasio’s administration has said little about the closed hospital since he took office, other than calling a news conference in early 2014 to celebrate a deal that would have required proposals for the LICH site to include “maximum health care.”

But his aides have long given up on a full-service hospital at the site and are instead trying to nail down the package of affordable units. “The whole situation became a total mess,” said one top adviser to the mayor.

[. . .]

For Mr. de Blasio, operating from his Brooklyn political base, the proposal to close LICH provided a highly visible issue in 2013. He gained traction in a crowded field of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor. He aligned himself with unions and railed against “real estate interests” that wanted to redevelop the valuable site.