Exclusive | Columbia washes hands of $96M Manhattanville regeneration fund after decades of mismanagement

A nearly $100 million fund intended to revitalize West Harlem has been mired in mismanagement, racism and inertia, The Post has found — with not one major project either conceived or built with the money in nearly two decades.In 2009, Columbia University signed a deal handing more than $96 million to a newly formed nonprofit, the West Harlem Local Development Corporation, to make amends for the displacement of local residents during an expansion.The school’s incursion into the Manhattanville neighborhood — from West 125th to West 134th streets, between Broadway and 12th Avenue — included constructing new arts and science centers, a business school and conference venue, at a cost of $6.3 billion.Controversially, it seized existing buildings by eminent domain, pitting the wealthy school against local small business and property owners who were refusing to budge.Things got so heated that when Columbia University’s president Lee Bollinger and Julio Batista — chair of the new nonprofit — went to sign the agreement, they had to navigate through a group of rowdy protestors with hand-printed signs proclaiming “West Harlem is not for sale” who had to be held back by the NYPD.Despite the uproar, the university hailed it “an opportunity for the University and our local community to enhance our collective work ..

.while helping local citizens and businesses be full participants in the new economic opportunities created by Columbia’s commitment to local growth.”Seventeen years later, sources say the controversial fund has been continually mismanaged and “a generational opportunity” for improvement has been squandered.Columbia sources tell The Post the university made its final payment last year and has since abandoned the fund, which has dwindled to $56 million.The Post found that almost none of the $20 million earmarked for affordable housing has been spent, and rather than meaningful community development, locals are fobbed off with token grants t...