NYC business officials scouring real estate listings to house growing number of migrants

As New York City continues its scramble to find shelter for the relentless surge of asylum seekers, the city’s economic development officials are scouring real-estate listings and contacting brokers about the availability of space in a heightened desperate push to find room for the stream of migrants, The Post has learned

Sources in the real estate community said they were stunned to hear from reps from the city Economic Development Corporation, who emailed and called them about the availability of vacant office space after checking listings almost always responded to by companies seeking to lease or sublease.

The EDC reps asked about the “potential suitability for a site for asylum seekers” during their queries, one source said.

What surprised real estate brokers is the city officials are not just looking for space in totally empty buildings, but also in Midtown facilities that are mostly or partially occupied where some vacant space could be subleased. 

One rep for the EDC involved in the effort declined to comment when contacted by The Post.

The EDC, which is the city’s economic development arm of the city whose mission is to bolster and attract business to the Big Apple, declined comment.

Mayor Eric Adams’s office also declined comment.

But City Hall last week sent out an SOS to the business community, with space at hotels dwindling.

“As reflected in media accounts, the City of New York is in need of immediately identifying space for asylum-seekers and the Adams administration needs the industry’s assistance,” the letter said.

“The City of New York is looking for emergency sites such as gyms or dorms that are available quickly and that could be used by the City temporarily to provide immediate relief and shelter to adult migrants while it triages new arrivals and then find alternative arrangements.  

The letter continued, “The City of New York will continue to do all that it can but it can’t do this alone and is asking for your help….The migrants deserve to be sheltered in a safe and decent space but if it [the city]  can’t identify adequate locations for shelters then it will likely have to explore drastic alternative options.”

One leading city business advocate was not surprised that the mayor tapped EDC officials to pitch in to find space in an all-hands-on-deck crisis, as they did during the once-in-century COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a humanitarian crisis. It’s like the pandemic, when EDC was procuring masks and ventilators and the Sanitation Commissioner was serving as Food Czar,” said Kathy Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for the City of New York.

“The city is using every resource to deal with this influx of people who are totally at our mercy – 7 more buses arrived today – without federal support. This is a failure of our nation that New York and a few other cities are having to pay for!,” she added.

The mayor has previously discussed tapping into vacant office space, such as the unused Candler building in Times Square and the Flatiron building, to shelter migrants.

The city previously asked the EDC to issue requests for proposal to the business community to see if vacant space was available.