Trump Org Presses Eric Adams for Wollman Rink Rights After City Hall Spurned $120M Nonprofit Gift

This article was originally published on March 15 at 9:49 a.m. EDT by THE CITY. Sign up here to get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning.

By Greg B. Smith, THE CITY

The Trump Organization is aggressively lobbying the office of Mayor Eric Adams to win its bid to run Central Park’s Wollman Rink, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to THE CITY — squeezing Adams to award a contract even as President Donald Trump’s Justice Department moves to dismiss the mayor’s corruption case.

The city put out a solicitation for bids just days after Trump won reelection in November. The opening for Trump to run the coveted rink also came just weeks after the nonprofit Central Park Conservancy had offered to give the city $120 million to replace the rink and fix up part of the park.

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi and Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue didn’t take the gift offer — and didn’t respond to the conservancy’s followup. After ghosting the conservancy, the Department of Parks and Recreation put up a public notice the morning of Nov. 13 seeking bids to operate the rink.

Within hours, a Trump Organization executive was quoted as stating the company intended to pursue the contract — suggesting advance knowledge of the bid opportunity.

If City Hall awards the Wollman Rink concession to the Trump Organization, the president’s family business, it would link the popular tourist destination at the foot of the iconic park to the Trump name once again.

Trump has used Wollman Rink for years to burnish his claim that he is a brilliant businessman.

During the 1980s, the Koch administration had tried for years to refurbish the broken-down rink. After six years and $20 million in government spending, the project had collapsed. Enter rising star developer Donald Trump, who promised to get the job done in six months for $3 million. He did it in four months for $2 million.

His company ran the rink for decades but was kicked out by Mayor de Blasio following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by Trump supporters at the Capitol. Last year, a judge ruled the company liable for more than $363 million in a civil case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, centered on financial misrepresentations by the company to the state of New York in tax filings.

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Councilmember Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) recently wrote to Adams, expressing “deep concern” about the possibility of the city bringing the Trump Organization back to manage Wollman, and questioning why his administration shrugged off “an extremely exciting and compelling proposal from the Central Park Conservancy.”

Mutual Interests

Adams’ relationship with Trump has been the focus of increasing public scrutiny since December when President-elect Trump said he was considering granting a pardon to Adams, accusing the Biden Justice Department of treating the mayor “pretty unfairly.”

That was followed by Adams meeting with Trump near his Mar-a-Lago estate on Jan. 17, a visit the mayor insists did not include discussion of his pending case. Days later on Jan. 31, however, the mayor’s criminal defense attorneys met with then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and Manhattan federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., to discuss potentially tanking the case.

Bove filed the dismissal request Feb. 14, moving to toss Adams’ corruption charges while still maintaining the option to prosecute later. That was followed by an awkward Adams media appearance touting his partnership with the Trump administration, with “border czar” Tom Homan stating he would “be up his butt” if Adams broke his vow to help Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Several federal prosecutors refused to file the dismissal motion and resigned in protest, with the acting Manhattan U.S. attorney alleging that the agreement to toss the charges in exchange for the mayor’s collaboration on immigration was an unlawful quid pro quo. Four of his top deputy mayors — including Joshi — announced their resignations, and several elected officials and other public figures have accused Adams of being a “hostage” to Trump.

Since then, the mayor has carefully avoided saying anything negative about the Trump administration. During a Tuesday press briefing, for instance, he was asked about Canada’s threat, triggered by Trump’s back-and-forth tariff orders, to put a 25% surcharge on energy deliveries to New York – a move that would have hiked utility costs for New Yorkers.

The mayor demurred, stating, “When you talk about tariffs and who’s going to decide the tariffs and a war that’s going to go back and forth on the tariffs, that’s the role of the federal government. I don’t control that.”

Spurned Gift

After former Mayor Bill de Blasio terminated the Trump Organization’s Wollman Rink contract in 2021, Parks solicited bids and turned the concession over to a joint venture that included The Related Companies, one of New York’s biggest real estate developers. That agreement is set to expire in June 2026, and last year City Hall and the Parks Department began working on how to proceed going forward.

A key player involved in these talks was the Central Park Conservancy, a well-heeled nonprofit that has steered millions of dollars in philanthropic funding to enhance the park. Among its projects, scheduled to open this summer: a $160 million replacement for the ice rink and swimming pool, formerly known as Lasker Rink, in the northeastern corner of the park. The conservancy contributed $100 million to the new facility, dubbed the Davis Center at the Harlem Meer, with the remaining $60 million covered by the city.

Last summer and fall, the conservancy’s lobbyists targeted Joshi and Donoghue to discuss the “future of Wollman rink,” city lobbying records reveal. On Sept. 18, the conservancy met with staff of Joshi and Donoghue at City Hall, pitching the idea of providing the city with a $120 million gift that would pay to replace the rink and address chronic stormwater flooding and accessibility issues in the southeast corner of the park, a source familiar with the meeting told THE CITY.

At the meeting, the city staff immediately pushed back on the proposal, demanding to know how much it would cost city taxpayers, the source said. The conservancy said it would require a commitment of $30 million in order to “unlock” adequate philanthropic donations to fund the project, the source said.

In an Oct. 18 letter obtained by THE CITY, Conservancy President and CEO Elizabeth Smith made one last pitch to Joshi and Donoghue, arguing that “re-envisioning the entire southeast corner, including the rink and the surrounding landscapes…would be dramatically better for the Park and the City than a one-off rebuilding of the rink alone.”

Smith noted the administration’s concerns about losing the $3 million in fees it collects annually from the rink, but promised “to design a fee structure that makes sense for the city.”

“We are not a corporate entity seeking a shortcut to extract money from the city but a partner trying to give money to the City,” she wrote.

Weeks passed with no response. Then at 9 a.m. on Nov. 13, days after Trump’s electoral victory, the first public notice of a request for proposals (RFP) seeking bids on Wollman was published in the City Record, the city’s official bulletin board where all bid requests and awards are announced.

By 2:27 p.m. that day, Trump Organization Executive Vice President Ron Lieberman was quoted by the New York Post stating, “We are going to respond to the RFP. I am submitting a proposal. We ran Wollman rink flawlessly for decades.”

Sources confirmed to THE CITY that the Trump Organization then bid on the concession. The company did not respond to THE CITY’s questions about when it learned of the city’s intention to put out an RFP or to provide any information on its subsequent discussions about winning the Wollman Rink concession with either the mayor’s office or the parks department.

THE CITY repeatedly sent written questions to the mayor’s office and the parks department, requesting details on their communications with the Trump Organization prior to and after the issuance of the RFP. THE CITY has received no response.

Asked last week when they expect to name a winner, a parks department spokesperson responded, “Parks is currently reviewing all proposals.”

THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.