The head of the development corporation created by Mayor Bloomberg to spur economic development in Downtown Brooklyn is leaving for a top-ranking job at the Empire State Development Corp., sources said today.
Joe Chan, president of the public-private Downtown Brooklyn Partnership since its inception in 2006, had been making $220,000 annually but recently took a pay cut to slightly below $180,000 to reflect the current economic downturn, sources said.
It is unclear what his salary will be working for the state’s economic development arm, but ESDC President Ken Adams – whom Chan would be working under — makes $175,000.
A Partnership spokesman confirmed Chan is stepping down to “return to government” but would not be specific. However, sources later confirmed Chan is leaving to work at Empire State Development Corp.
It is unknown when Chan is officially leaving the Partnership for the state or who will replace him.
Before joining the Partnership, Chan served as senior policy advisor to then-Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff.
During Chan’s Partnership tenure, he helped transform Downtown Brooklyn from a struggling business district filled with 99-cent stores into the city’s fastest growing neighborhood.
The Partnership is also now running the Fulton Mall, Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn and Metro Tech business improvement districts.
However, Comptroller John Liu ripped the Partnership in a recent audit for keeping shoddy payroll records, poorly documenting private donations and snubbing competitive-bidding laws. The Partnership has denied the findings.
Downtown Brooklyn is now the city’s third-largest business district and an emerging 24-hour live-work community.
The Post reported in March that since 2006 there’s been $3.4 billion in private investment in the entire Downtown area, a 60-square-block section bounded by Tillary Street to the north, Cadman Plaza and Court Street to the west, Ashland Place to east and Atlantic Avenue to the south.
This has resulted in 5,200 residential units, 1,000 hotel rooms and 826,000 square feet of retail and office space.
However, while Downtown’s housing market strived – with the exception of 6,400 units planned at the stalled Atlantic Yards project – the national credit crunch significantly dipped into the city’s once lofty expectations for new commercial space and hotels there.