Lata Reddy, senior vice president for inclusive solutions at Prudential Financial and chair of the Newark Alliance, interviewed New Jersey Economic Development Authority CEO Evan Weiss during a Feb. 9 fireside chat at the Newark Summit for Real Estate, Economic Development & Placemaking. — Photos by Gellman Images / Courtesy: roundtable&advisory
By Joshua Burd
Evan Weiss had his reasons for leaving state government in 2021. One of them, he recalls, was “because I started to feel so removed” from the constituents who were affected by the sweeping policies and billions in funds he helped deploy as a top adviser to Gov. Phil Murphy.
He rediscovered that connection as head of the nonprofit Newark Alliance, a role he held for four years — and one that will loom large as he returns to Trenton as CEO of the state Economic Development Authority.
“I don’t want to not be able to talk to business owners directly, developers directly,” Weiss said recently at the Newark Summit for Real Estate, Economic Development & Placemaking. “It’s a huge bureaucracy, we have hundreds of staff … I just want to make sure that we stay — personally and my senior team — in deep in terms of having a sense of: ‘How does this actually translate? We have all these products. How are they actually working for you?’
“Easier said than done, but if I have one lesson, I want to walk around. I want to be able to see things firsthand myself, to understand how it’s getting communicated down into the community.”
That’s no surprise for someone who is tasked with accelerating economic growth, expanding access to capital for small and minority-owned businesses and driving innovation while making the state more affordable, goals highlighted by Gov. Mikie Sherrill when she tapped Weiss to lead the EDA in mid-January. That dovetails with making the authority’s programs more accessible and even more impactful to a broader swath of the business community, Weiss said, as he hailed the chance to lead “an incredible team” and an organization that he feels “is unique, nationally.”
“It’s a challenging time,” he said before a crowd of hundreds of Newark stakeholders. “There’s a lot going on, as you all know. And so being able to have the amount of tools and the team that’s been built here and partners like all of you makes me a lot more optimistic that we’re going be able to make our way through some pretty tough sledding ahead.”
Weiss spoke at the Feb. 9 event during a fireside chat with Lata Reddy, senior vice president for inclusive solutions at Prudential Financial and chair of the Newark Alliance, which focuses on inclusive economic development with substantial support from the private sector. Among other topics, he noted that “a lot of people in this room and at my old job are very vocal” about how to amplify EDA’s impact in Newark, seemingly by demystifying and streamlining its billion-dollar tax credit programs.
“There’s a lot of developers I know who just feel like they couldn’t get at it and, in my mind, should be able to,” Weiss said. “I want to break that down and make these credits more inclusive for developers who we know can do the job, but maybe, according to a spreadsheet, they were on the wrong side of it. That’s not going to sit well with me.”
That goes hand in hand with expanding and better incorporating the EDA’s Emerging Developers Grant Program, he said. Weiss also wants to ensure that builders that receive tax credits are getting the best value when they sell them to raise additional financing.
“Even for the most experienced developers in the world, the best lawyers … they still find it difficult to get through these credits,” he said. “And when I watch the value of the credits deteriorate on the market because of the complexity, that’s not what I want to see.”
Fixing that means working with the state Treasury Department, Office of the Attorney General and stakeholders in the community.
“We want honest feedback about, when we actually award you a project, what are you getting in return? How is that actually working in the market?” he said. “I want to make sure we’re getting the highest cents on the dollar that we can there.”
Weiss, who is highly respected across the public and private sectors, said he was “very, very, very lucky to be inheriting an incredible team” at EDA from his predecessor, Tim Sullivan, and interim CEO Mary Maples. He now hopes to leverage the agency’s depth of talent and institutional reach while “learning … from people on the ground” throughout the state, as he sought to do as head of the Newark Alliance.
He also cited the continued focus on ensuring that the benefits of EDA’s incentives extend beyond a single project. In Newark, Weiss said, he believes both the city and the state have “a really strong set of ground rules around that … relative to affordable housing.” That remains a top priority for communities throughout the state.
“It’s a somewhat boring answer, but we’re doing more already with how we’re looking at data to have a better sense of how we know what we’re impacting,” said Weiss, a former senior adviser for finance and major projects to Murphy. “To the point of, nationally, what others can learn from us, what the mayor has set up, what Governor Murphy has set up and what Governor Sherrill is continuing, you can’t pass go without hitting equity targets. That, to me, is really important.”
Weiss noted that he “got to travel up and down the state” during his first week at EDA. It was a reminder that public- and private-sector stakeholder groups can interact differently from city to city, he said, and being able to learn the best of each community “is an exciting part of the job.”
In the meantime, he knows what he’s getting in Newark — a level of stakeholder engagement and buy-in from public officials, business leaders and nonprofits that may be unrivaled.
“It’s this room, it’s the people that are here … the amount of interest that people have in Newark — in Newark — and how many different ways, all the different tools they’re willing to use to do that, I think, is amazing,” Weiss said.
He later added: “We have such an amazingly strong public sector that complements the private sector and a very strong third sector here. A lot of cities have this, but the level of intensity, the ability to then ideate and then get something done, that is unique.”
EDA board approves Weiss, former Newark Alliance leader, as its new CEO
