Silverstein Properties COO Dino Fusco—a longtime downtown resident—opens up about his career, his commute, and the company’s latest projects.

“I’ve walked to work 95 percent of the time over the past 34 years that I’ve lived downtown,” says Dino Fusco, whose first job out of Georgetown Law was as an associate at Fried Frank on Water Street. “I’m a creature of habit.” Now, as then, his daily route isn’t the most direct one. “I like the vista of walking down West Broadway. If I wanted a more direct route, I’d go down Broadway and then just hook a right on Barclay.” Fusco’s current commute, he reckons, is about 1.4 miles. 

After Fried Frank, Fusco joined Goldman Sachs, then headquartered at nearby 85 Broad Street, working his way up to global head of the firm’s real estate portfolio, where he managed 220 properties in 35 countries. By 2019, he was logging 200,000 frequent-flyer miles of business travel per year. On the brink of career burnout, he notified his bosses that he intended to retire at year’s end.    

As if on cue, he got a call from Larry Silverstein, who asked him if he’d like to interview for the newly vacated position of chief operating officer at the eponymous family-run real estate firm Larry founded with his father, Harry, in 1957. “When I met with him, the first thing he said was ‘How old are you?’” recalls Fusco. “I told him I was 54, and he said, ‘Oh, you’re so young!’ And I said, ‘Larry, I think I’m the oldest person at Goldman Sachs other than David Solomon, and he’s the CEO.’” 

In no uncertain terms, Silverstein told Fusco he was looking for a hire who would stick around “for the next three decades,” not just a few years. “When I told my wife that she said, ‘This job is perfect for you, because you’ll be out of my hair for the next 30 years.’” Despite wanting to take “a year or two off to catch my breath,” Fusco accepted Silverstein’s offer, and a start date was set. 

As he had done for the previous three decades, Fusco walked to his first day of work at Silverstein’s 7 World Trade Center headquarters. It was Monday, March 16th, 2020. By the end of the week, Governor Andrew Cuomo had issued a shelter-in-place order for nonessential workers as Covid cases spiked. “It was a strange start to my career here at Silverstein,” Fusco remembers. “It was a bit like drinking from two fire hoses, but it was a great way to get up to speed very quickly on the company’s operations.” 

Open, affable, and stylish—the son of a tailor, he still does alterations to his own suits—Fusco might not come across as your typical COO. Until recently, he was laser-focused on the company’s proposed $7 billion mixed-use development, The Avenir, which included a 1,000-room luxury Hyatt hotel, casino, food hall, community art gallery, and a dozen restaurants and bars. The remarkable design, by husband-and-wife team CetraRuddy, features a reflective façade of “gentle harmonious waves” that rise into a sculpturesque, 45-story glass tower. 

The location of the proposed complex was a barren stretch of 11th Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets, the former site of a Mercedes-Benz dealership. To the north stands a FedEx warehouse and a Con Edison substation, to the south is the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Silverstein has owned the approximately two-acre parcel for more than a decade. Various proposals have been floated since then—residential, retail, even scientific lab space—none of which panned out. “It really is an industrial site,” says Fusco. 

In 2023, when the New York State Gaming Commission announced it would be awarding three downstate casino licenses for the first time, many of the biggest corporate players wanted in on the action, including Caesars Palace, MGM, and Bally’s. “To be frank, we are real estate developers,” Fusco says, “and we had never even thought about developing a casino.” But as soon as the Gaming Commission announced the new licenses, Silverstein started receiving inquiries about the 11th Avenue site from various casino owners and operators. Fusco declines to say who initially reached out, only that “they were the most likely suspects.” 

Silverstein eventually found compatible project partners in Chicago-based Rush Street Gaming and Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment, which owns Parx Casino, the top-earning casino in Pennsylvania. “They’re both much more like the Silverstein organization than all of the other typical casino owners or operators,” Fusco explains. “All three of us are privately owned, family held, long-term interested, and have the reputation of engaging with the community. We’re not managing our assets on a quarter-by-quarter basis like many of the publicly held companies do. We’re managing them for the long term.”   

Fusco and his colleagues spent nearly two years developing the Avenir proposal, a complicated and costly process—to say the least—involving architectural, environmental, and engineering firms; community boards, advisory committees, neighborhood residents, and politicians. Engaging local communities in a comprehensive, boots-on-the-ground way has long been an important part of Silverstein’s modus operandi, and the Avenir project was no exception. It was also a no-brainer, given that the company owns two residential complexes, River Place and Silver Towers, just across 11th Avenue from the site. “We spent a lot of time talking to the neighborhood, including the 2,300 families who are living in our apartment buildings immediately across the street,” says Fusco. “We met with all the local elected officials, we met with the community board, we met with local business owners. And we asked, what do you want? What don’t you want?” 

Despite all the outreach, on September 17th the Community Advisory Committee, whose six members were appointed by local officials and had final say, ultimately voted the project down. (The two aye votes were cast by representatives of the governor and mayor.) Opponents of the project, who had raised concerns about increased traffic congestion and decreased quality of life for those living nearby, had won. Proponents pointed out that the committee’s downvote would sink prospects for thousands of good-paying local jobs. The Avenir would have created 5,000 permanent positions—on top of 4,000 union construction jobs—most of them offering $50 an hour or more on average. 

Voted down by a different committee earlier the same day was SL Green’s proposed Caesars Palace Times Square casino, backed by Jay-Z but besieged by fierce opposition from a coalition of local community groups, led by the Broadway League. And the following week another Community Advisory Committee gave thumbs down to Mohegan and Soloviev Group’s Bjarke Ingels-designed, UN-adjacent Freedom Plaza project. “The community was opposed to building the United Nations,” Soloviev’s frustrated CEO, Michael Hershman, said after the vote. “If it were up to the communities, we wouldn’t have an Empire State Building or Rockefeller Plaza.” It was all a stark reminder that nothing is a sure bet in Manhattan real estate development until the ribbon is cut. 

“The silver lining of it, honestly, was watching our team in action, working together,” says Fusco. “I’ve never felt more proud of them, even though we lost the opportunity to move forward.” He adds that at the final public hearing for the Avenir, a week before the Community Advisory Committee’s vote, of the 171 people who spoke, three-quarters were in favor of the project.   

In late 2024, to help ease the city’s housing crisis, Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams introduced a new tax incentive to encourage developers to convert otherwise vacant office space into residential housing, called Section 467-m. As a result, dozens of residential conversion projects are now underway, notably 5 Times Square in midtown. 

Two years before the arrival of 467-m, Silverstein had already partnered with Metro Loft Management to convert the 410,000-square-foot 55 Broad Street—once the headquarters of Goldman Sachs and more recently suffering from an anemic 60 percent occupancy—into 571 market-rate rental apartments, 75 percent of which have already been leased. “It doesn’t always work,” Fusco cautions. “Some buildings are too big, for example. But if a building is of a certain age, it’s a lot easier. The older the building, the fewer the restrictions, which is why downtown is prime for office-to-residential conversion.” Fusco says the company’s plan is to now sell 55 Broad Street and move on to the next conversion project. “Large, complicated development is one of Silverstein’s core competencies,” he says. “We know office, we know residential, so converting office to residential is something we can very clearly figure out.”

Walkability is a central tenet of Fusco’s real estate philosophy. “In fact, every one of my friends from outside of New York City, when they come to visit, more than anything they want to walk around,” he notes. New York is consistently ranked the most walkable city in America, and according to one recent study, “a staggering 73 percent of all office space in the region is in walkable urban places.” 

Lower Manhattan has the highest live/work ratio in the country—27 percent of residents who live downtown also work downtown, according to Larry Silverstein. “Nearly everyone who works here either walks or takes mass transit to work,” he adds. “That also makes it one of the greenest neighborhoods in the country.” 

In a corner of Fusco’s office overlooking the World Trade Center campus stands a formidable coat rack, ornamented with business suits. He pulls one off the rack. “I noticed the lapel was a bit wide, so I narrowed it, and I tapered the pants,” he explains, showing me his handiwork. “I guess what I’m saying is this is a suit that was probably out of style, that’s now hopefully more in style.” And with that, he’s off—on foot, naturally—to his next appointment.