The fallout from Governor Spitzer’s resignation has reached the Empire State Development Corp., as a co-chairman, Patrick Foye, in a surprise development that caught members of his staff off guard, resigned his post yesterday.

Mr. Foye is one of the most elevated Spitzer appointees to have stepped down since allegations emerged last week that Mr. Spitzer had hired a call girl from a high-priced escort service.

“Given Governor Spitzer’s resignation and my belief that you deserve to work with a team of your choosing, I have determined that it is timely for me to resign and return to the private sector,” Mr. Foye said in a resignation letter over the weekend, which was addressed to Governor Paterson and submitted.

The void created by Mr. Foye’s departure throws into further question the feasibility of a number of major development projects in Manhattan — most notably the remake of Penn Station — that had already been imperiled by funding shortages and a softening credit market.

News of Mr. Foye’s resignation came the same day a project that he was helping oversee — the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site — received a blow: JPMorgan Chase said it would not be moving its investment banking operation to a new building planned for the area.

Instead, JPMorgan will move its operation to the 43-story Bear Stearns offices on Madison Avenue, which it will acquire as part of its $2-a-share acquisition of the troubled financial services firm. Last June, JPMorgan and the Port Authority announced that the bank had entered into a 90-year lease, would build a new tower on the spot where the former Deutsche Bank building now sits, and would relocate thousands of its investment banking employees from its main Midtown location and several downtown locations.

Yesterday’s news comes as a blow to the Port Authority, which has been trying to sell the new World Trade Center site as an emerging center of commerce.

A spokesman for JPMorgan, Joe Evangelisti, said the bank plans to move into the Bear Stearns’s offices, but he did not rule out devising some alternative use for the site. “We still see the downtown option as an opportunity for us and are considering it for other uses,” he said. A spokeswoman for the Port Authority was not available for comment.

News of JPMorgan’s plans was first reported on the Web site of the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

Mr. Foye, who was charged with creating and supporting economic development in the downstate region, was considered part of Mr. Spitzer’s inner circle. He had been appointed in 2007.

Mr. Foye offered to serve a transition period before the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., Avi Schick, assumes the role of interim CEO. Mr. Schick has been mentioned as a possible replacement of Mr. Foye, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Mr. Schick previously served as a deputy attorney general under Mr. Spitzer and is also close to speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver. A spokesman for Mr. Schick declined comment.

In his resignation letter, Mr. Foye said he was “honored” to have served in the Spitzer-Paterson administration and to have helped in a “small way to advance the economic development priorities of the Administration.”

Mr. Foye had been closely involved in Mr. Spitzer’s decision to scrap the expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center after cost estimates more than doubled, to $5 billion, but he was forced to backtrack on plans to sell the two plots of land to the north of the convention center after Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, registered their opposition.

Mr. Foye has also been trying to fill a budget gap of at least $1 billion in the redevelopment of Penn Station, which has been marred by repeated delays.

Mr. Foye was an acquaintance of Mr. Spitzer and his wife Silda when they worked together at the law firm Skadden Arps.

“I entered this public role at the request of Governor Spitzer, whom I hold, together with First Lady Silda Wall Spitzer, in high regard for their public service,” Mr. Foye said in his letter.