Clinton consideres cheaper location for offices

NEW YORK – After drawing fire for plans to spend $800,000 a year to lease office space in midtown Manhattan, former President Clinton has abandoned the deal and is considering cheaper office space in Harlem, a spokeswoman said yesterday.

"He wanted to go to a place where he could be a good neighbor and be welcomed by the neighborhood as well," Julia Payne, a spokeswoman for Clinton’s Washington transition office, said yesterday.

Payne said Clinton was looking at about 8,000 square feet on West 125th Street, the main thoroughfare of the neighborhood in upper Manhattan. Neither Clinton’s office nor the building owner would comment on what the space might cost the former president.

Rep. Charles Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, said he had been in contact with Clinton about leasing space in the neighborhood over the weekend. Rangel referred to the office space as "state-of-the-art."

A proposed deal for office space on West 57th Street in Carnegie Towers, where Clinton’s rent would have been about $800,000, drew fire from congressional and other critics over its high cost. Like other ex-presidents, Clinton’s post-White House office is paid for by taxpayers. Last week, Clinton volunteered that his philanthropic foundation would cover $300,000 of the rent.

Payne said Clinton’s chief of staff Karen Tramontano told the General Services Administration yesterday that the former president no longer planned to pursue the Carnegie Towers space and asked the office to cancel lease negotiations.