Metro

Harlem build fund is wasting

A taxpayer-funded nonprofit with $55 million in the bank that was supposed to create a Harlem renaissance has stalled in its mission.

No new loans or grants from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone have been approved for local businesses or cultural groups in more than a year.

The governing board for UMEZ — the New York Empowerment Zone, which must approve all spending — hasn’t even met in a year. Its last meeting was on Dec. 14, 2011, and its next scheduled one is Jan. 23.

A UMEZ spokesman blamed the lapse on “scheduling difficulties.”

The NYEZ board, which includes Rep. Charles Rangel, met four times in 2010 and twice in 2011.

At the December 2011 meeting, $400,000 was earmarked for UMEZ to begin work on Mart 125, the long-stalled redevelopment of a former indoor market that has been empty for a decade.

The city, which owns the market building on 125th Street, last year named UMEZ as the developer for the $20 million project which will create about 47,000 square feet of cultural, office, and retail space. But UMEZ only recently hired a development consulting firm, according to the city.

UMEZ opened its doors in 1995 after Rangel wrote the legislation creating empowerment zones in distressed areas throughout the country. The nonprofit started with $249 million in federal, state and city dollars in its coffers.

The group now has about $55 million left.

In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, UMEZ doled out $9.9 million in grants to groups including the Harlem Arts Alliance, the Hispanic Federation, the Museum of African Art and the National Jazz Museum, according to its latest tax filings.

The group gave $2.7 million to Alianza Dominicana, a Washington Heights social services agency, by turning a loan to the group into a grant, which it did not have to repay. The money went toward Alianza’s new headquarters, but that building is now largely empty since the nonprofit closed its doors this summer.

Critics have charged UMEZ is hoarding its cash in order to keep itself going and pay administrative salaries.

UMEZ President Kenneth Knuckles’ salary and benefits totaled $240,853 in 2010, the latest figure available. He is set to get a retirement package of more than $570,000.