[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/magazine/nat...oloviev-group/

CEO Michael Hershman leads Soloviev Group’s next act
He cut his teeth as a detective and a spy. Now he’s in charge of Stefan Soloviev’s next big bet


NOV 2, 2023
By Harrison Connery

A 2 a.m. call to Michael Hershman’s hotel room relayed a simple message: Take $1 million to stop investigating payments from the Bofors arms company to Indian government officials, or be killed.

The private investigator didn’t take the money. It wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened. He did switch rooms.

“I have always found that those who threaten you, anonymously or otherwise, are the last people you have to be worried about,” said the now 78-year-old executive, who took over as Soloviev Group CEO in 2021. “You have to worry about the folks that don’t threaten you.”

.....A career that began in counterterrorism led him to government investigations, including work on the Senate Watergate Committee, and eventually to private investigations, all of which he says honed his instincts as an executive.

“I’m calm in the eye of the storm,” he said. “A crisis doesn’t faze me. … I confront it, I work on it in a calm fashion.”

He faces a new challenge as the right-hand man of one of New York City’s most ambitious real estate scions, Soloviev Group Chair Stefan Soloviev.

Hershman, who has leeway to control projects with little to no oversight, is being entrusted to spearhead the company’s bid for a casino project. To clinch one of three downstate New York casino licenses, the proposal will have to win public support.

Hershman’s ascent to the top of the Soloviev Group began roughly 30 years ago, when Fairfax was hired to consult for Sheldon Solow’s development company.

“I liked him, I respected him because he was really a visionary in so many different ways,” said Hershman of the late developer and Stefan Soloviev’s father.

They struck up a friendship, and he came to find himself in the billionaire’s inner circle. He got to know Solow’s different personas: the charming, easygoing friend and the notoriously difficult real estate operative.

Their friendship spared him Solow’s wrath and allowed Hershman a level of candor that few people enjoyed with him.

“If he came up with a dumb idea, I’d say, ‘That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard, Sheldon,’ and he’d laugh,” said Hershman. “Nobody else would ever say that. And from time to time I was successful in stopping him from doing something that would be a mistake. He appreciated that.”

.....Stefan grew close to Hershman when his father’s associate looked after him during a trip to Russia. Soloviev took over the company in the wake of his father’s death in 2020, and made Hershman CEO the following year.

“I think we work really well together,” said Soloviev. “I have more respect for him than probably any other person.”

Casino royale

Hershman might be direct with Soloviev, but he’s taking a diplomatic approach on the casino proposal, which he says is more than just a casino.

“It is an integrated entertainment district project,” he said, “with the casino as part of it, but not the largest part.”

It may be just one component of the proposal, but the casino is the golden ticket at the heart of the development, which would be built on Soloviev’s 6.7-acre lot in Midtown East. Besides the casino, which would be mostly underground, the proposal calls for two residential towers, a hotel, a park and a democracy museum.

Hershman said he’s had more than 40 meetings with community groups and representatives as well as union leaders. He recently revealed that if the casino license is awarded, the project’s residential component would have over 500 affordable units, one of the largest affordable developments in the neighborhood’s history. Soloviev Group would also donate a part of its profits to a community fund “with no strings attached,” Hershman said.

Residents like the project’s affordable component and green space, according to a Murray Hill Neighborhood Association survey, but the casino plans triggered negative reactions, and community opposition remains.

Community Board 6 opposes the project and insists the company hasn’t been proactive enough in its engagement. Its chair, Kyle Athayde, said the group was made aware of the proposal and subsequent updates through news coverage.

“After more than a decade of ignoring the community, the Soloviev Group has suddenly decided to start beautifying the vacant pit with art exhibits and promising the world to the community, which is so obviously disingenuous,” Athayde said in a statement.

The community board said it is concerned about an increase in traffic and security risks associated with more visitors to the area. They say any development should maintain the neighborhood’s residential character.

Hershman said he’s made several concessions to appease the concerns. There won’t be any entrances on First Avenue, and the casino would bus people directly from Grand Central to cut down on traffic.

“There’s going to be development there whether you like it or not,” he said. “We have the right to build four towers and, under the plans we have approved now, there would be higher traffic volume, less security and less convenience than this improved plan. So they have a choice.”

Sounds like a threat, lol. The bussing thing isn't going to work, just as it won't work with the proposed Bally's in the Bronx.