The 92nd Street Y on Friday announced that it has appointed Seth Pinsky, who was the head of the Bloomberg administration’s economic development arm, to serve as its chief executive.

Mr. Pinsky’s appointment comes as the cultural and community center embarks on an extensive update to its buildings on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The project is meant to make more space for the 92nd Street Y’s expansive slate of programming, which includes concerts, lectures from high-profile public figures, a sought-after nursery school, language and music classes, and activities associated with Jewish life. The nonprofit recently raised $180 million, part of which will go toward the capital project.

The 92nd Street Y lost its previous leader, Henry Timms, earlier this year when he left to become president of the Lincoln Center. Since then, the 92nd Street Y has been led by two deputy executive directors, Jim O’Hara and Alyse Myers, who is being promoted to chief operating officer.

Mr. Pinsky, 48, was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg as president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation just before the height of the 2008 financial crisis. In that role, he negotiated on behalf of the mayor for the new Yankee Stadium and the World Trade Center; as for the arts, he worked on the deal to sell city property to the Whitney Museum for its second location and on the renovation of the Kings Theater in Brooklyn from a vacant and deteriorating movie theater to a multipurpose arts center. In 2013, Mr. Pinsky left the administration for a private sector job at a real estate company.