Islamic Center Also Challenges a Young Builder

Islamic Center Also Challenges a Young Builder
By ANNE BARNARD and CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: August 26, 2010



Sharif el-Gamal is a relative newcomer to the New York City real estate business. He got his broker’s license in 2002. He is developing two condominium projects: turning a building in TriBeCa into six lofts, and planning apartments on what is now a West Side parking lot. He comes from the well-off family of a bank executive, but not from real estate billions.
With a career marked by drive and ambition but still in its early stages, Mr. Gamal, 37, has taken on a colossal challenge. He is the developer planning a Muslim community center on property he owns near ground zero — a $100 million project, he estimates, at the center of the most contentious national debate over Islam, America and freedom of religion in the nine years since 9/11.

It is the kind of project — a 15-story building, open to all, with a theater, educational programs, a swimming pool, a restaurant, a mosque and a 9/11 memorial — that people with experience in Manhattan development say needs years of groundwork, even without controversy.

But although he has cleared the legal hurdles and won approval from the local community board, Mr. Gamal has yet to secure financing, hire an architect, incorporate the nonprofit entity that will run the center, start its fund-raising, recruit its board members, or present formal feasibility studies and business plans to community meetings.

Putting aside sweeping debates over the project’s propriety and meaning, many ask a simpler question: Can Mr. Gamal pull it off?

“I have always marveled at the romantic notion that the average New Yorker has toward development,” said Josh Guberman, who in developing 28 properties in the city has dealt with financing, plumbing, transportation, unions and more. “To be frank, successful development in New York City is not an arena for the novice or inexperienced player.”

Building anything anywhere in recession-era New York is tough; Lower Manhattan is tougher; Mr. Gamal’s project, called Park51, is still more complex.

Mr. Gamal hopes to raise $70 million through tax-exempt bonds, which religiously affiliated nonprofit groups can obtain — but only if they prove that the facilities will benefit the general public, with religious functions separately financed.

He wants to recruit a board of business and civic leaders — Christians, Jews and Muslims — to raise an additional $30 million to $40 million for the nonprofit’s stake in the building. Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul, has signed on. But controversy complicates recruiting, and donations will be squeezed by the economy and scrutinized by opponents who wonder if money will come from radical Islamist groups or hostile governments.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/nyregion/27build.html?ref=us