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LuxuryBlurbPosts Tagged ‘new york city’CARCHITECTURE!Monday, January 24th, 2011
Have you noticed how cars have become more cleverly integrated into architecture recently? Two great examples: 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami beach designed by Herzog and de Meuron and developed by Robert Wennet…..and 200 Eleventh Avenue in New York City by Annabelle Selldorf, developed by Glauco Lolli Ghetti of Urban Muse and Young Woo & associates. Whats next in CARCHITECTURE? DEVELOPMENT SUFFOCATION: OUT-OF-CONTROL GOVERNMENT BENEFITS?Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
The reason is rather simple: Over the past few decades, governments have become entwined in a series of arrangements that drain money from productive uses and direct it toward unproductive ones, mostly politically driven. New Jersey can’t afford to build its tunnel, but benefits packages for the state’s employees are 41 percent more expensive than those offered by the average Fortune 500 company. These benefits costs are rising by 16 percent a year. Are yours? New York City has to strain to finance its schools but supports 10,000 former cops who retired before age 50. Will you retire before 50? California can’t afford new water projects, but state cops often receive 90 percent of their salaries when they retire at 50. The average corrections officer there makes $70,000 a year in base salary and $100,000 with overtime (California spends more on its prison system than on its schools). States across the nation will be paralyzed for the rest of our lives because they face unfunded pension obligations that amount to approximately $2 trillion — or $87,000 per plan participant. And remember the life expectancy of human beings has risen dramatically since these policies were enacted. Another issue in prohibitive construction costs is the effect Unions have had on costs: like governments, Unions’ sense of entitlement has mushroomed and the excesses are strangling progress, hurting our economy and ultimately hurting the union members: think Detroit. All in all, governments can’t promote future prosperity because they are choking on their own self-indulgence. And when governments cannot afford to take on these projects, everyone suffers, except of course the small group of government beneficiaries of this un-funded excess. “There are only two solutions’” says Leonard Steinberg, publisher of LUXURYLETTER ”1) scale back benefits to market based reality, or 2) raise taxes.” DOES BEST LOCATION = WORST QUALITY RESTAURANT?Thursday, September 9th, 2010I am currently traveling in Europe researching trends and getting a breather: it ceases to amaze me how many restaurants located in the very best, most desirable, attractive locations seem to have the worst food and service. Is this an international phenomena? Thinking of New York City, I guess the definition of ‘best location’ helps determine the quality of the restaurant. But I certainly can think of many prized locations in the city that do indeed deliver some of the worst food and service. Often the best restaurants in these prize locations are grossly over-rated. Just because you have a great location are you entitled to give those dreaded tourists the worst possible experience? I think Cities should fine rotten restaurants in great locations for bad service and quality, or at least give them a rating on the front door, a badge of shame….. “In real estate it truly is all about location,” says Leonard Steinberg, managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman and leader of the LUXURYLOFT team. “It is unfortunate when a retail establishment abuses a prize location. It is done so at the detriment of the town or city. Thankfully blogs have helped identify the worst offenders. Maybe an I-Phone APP for this is an idea, warning un-informed tourists not to enter a rotten restaurant?” MORE THAN HALF OF NYC CONSTRUCTION IS EDUCATIONALTuesday, August 3rd, 2010New York City’s education sector has become an increasingly important market for the construction industry, according to the New York Building Congress, a nonprofit group that represents the construction industry. Elementary and secondary schools, as well as higher education institutions, accounted for 56% of the value of all institutional construction starts between May 2008 and April of this year, according to a report released by the group Monday. The Building Congress points out that much of the surge is due to the work of the New York City School Construction Authority, which initiated $3.1 billion in public school projects over this period, compared with $174 million in starts by private elementary and secondary schools. Private colleges and universities were responsible for $744 million in starts, while publicly-owned institutions of higher education, such as City University of New York, accounted for $540 million in starts. Construction of new education facilities totaled $2.3 billion in value. This stands in direct contrast with the office sector, which has seen very little ground-up construction outside the World Trade Center in recent years. Recent major construction starts include CUNY’s $381 million Advanced Research Center and $210 million Fiterman Hall, as well as Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s $225 million research building. New York City’s private and public institutions initiated $8.1 billion in total construction projects over a two year period ending in April 2010. The public sector was responsible for $4.87 billion, or 60%, of the value of these projects, while private sector owners accounted for $3.28 billion in project starts. “These figures indicate the importance of government spending during a recession,” says Leonard Steinberg, head of the LUXURYLOFT team and a managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman. “Without this spending, one could be certain the construction industry would be virtually wiped out. My concern is what happens once this construction ends: hopefully by then the private sector has recovered. The reality is the private sector is paying for all of this, regardless: while government spending may be huge, it is taxpayers money paying for this after all.” JOB CREATION IN NEW YORK CITY BEATS REST OF US.Monday, August 2nd, 2010
“The good news is, companies are ready to talk,” says Simon Binder, managing partner. “The bad news is, they’re still reluctant to make decisions.” Local executives like Mr. Binder are frequently turning to the phrase “cautious optimism” to describe the glimmers of light they see in the recovery. Yet when the rebound here is compared with what’s happening in the rest of the U.S., a brighter picture emerges: New York City has capitalized on growth in a mix of industries that were never crushed by the recession in order to bounce back faster than the country as a whole. News last week that the U.S. recovery is losing momentum raised fears of a potential “double-dip” recession. That could crimp the city’s progress, of course, since New York’s fortunes are ultimately tied to the nation’s. But tourism is thriving, office vacancy rates have started to drop, and the five boroughs added jobs at a brisker clip than the rest of the country in the first six months of the year. The city has even managed so far to sidestep many of the public-sector layoffs that are thinning state and municipal work forces nationwide. In the first half, the city economy grew by 1.7% (or 51,500 jobs), compared with 0.6% for the U.S. (593,000 jobs), according to an analysis of state Department of Labor data by real estate services firm Eastern Consolidated. One reason the city has topped the nation: It relies less than other metro areas do on construction and manufacturing, which have been battered throughout the U.S. in the downturn. On the flip side, New York was buoyed by gains in restaurants and retail trade, which both were boosted as business travel to the city picked up. Retail outlets recorded the largest gain of any city sector, showing a 10,500-job spike through June, while restaurants added 7,000 jobs, Eastern Consolidated reports. Restaurateur David Kostman, co-founder and CEO of Nanoosh, has actually used the downturn to expand his roster of hummus eateries from one to four, spurred in part by the availability of cheaper space. “For the last year, the big chains didn’t grow, and a lot of the banks were shutting down,” Mr. Kostman says. “We were able to get premier locations—and the prices were significantly lower.” Securities firms shed 2,700 jobs in the first half, but the losses likely would have been much steeper had it not been for the federal government’s billions of dollars in bank bailouts, which ended up having a disproportionate impact on the city. And the overall finance sector recovered strongly, bolstered by a strong showing in real estate, which added 3,200 jobs. (Real estate has not held up nearly as well nationally, dropping 25,100 jobs through June.) NEW YORKERS ARE FINDING JOBSWhile the city and the U.S. share an unemployment rate of 9.5%, New York’s rate is more of a positive indicator. The city has shaved a full percentage point off its unemployment rate despite the fact that its work force has grown by 7,900, or 0.2%, since its previous peak in June 2009. Meanwhile, the nation’s work force has fallen by 1.9 million, or 1.2%, since its last peak in May 2009, as the unemployed have grown discouraged and given up looking for jobs. “It’s a very good thing to see New York’s unemployment rate falling even though the labor force is growing,” says Marisa Di Natale of Moody’s Economy.com. “It means people coming back into the labor force or moving into the city are actually finding jobs.” Plenty of indicators beyond the employment rolls point to New York’s relative health. Hotel occupancy rates are up—checking in at nearly 90% in May, up from a low of 68% in the first quarter of 2009, according to Colliers PKF Consulting USA. The average price per room is still below prerecession levels, but the growth in occupancy comes despite a surge of hotel openings over the past 18 months. “Throughout the downturn, we lost ground in individual business travel and business groups,” John Fox, a Colliers senior vice president, says of the New York hotel market. “And that’s where we’ve seen a lot of this recovery [lately].” The city’s commercial office market has also started to rebound, says Ken McCarthy, managing director for New York area research at Cushman & Wakefield. Midtown south, downtown and midtown Manhattan boast the three lowest vacancy rates in the nation—9.3%, 9.9% and 11.5%, respectively, according to Cushman’s data. Because the city lost a smaller proportion of its jobs in the downturn than the nation did, and because there was little significant new construction during the boom, local vacancy rates are below the national average of 14.8%, Mr. McCarthy adds. Apartment rentals are surging, an indication that New Yorkers are confident in their ability to land jobs and that more people are moving here to seek work, says Economy.com’s Ms. Di Natale. She also notes that in the first quarter, the Case-Shiller Condo Price Index rose by 1.6% in the New York area—the only area in the country that posted a gain, according to Fiserv and Economy.com. While news that the city is outstripping the U.S. on many economic fronts is positive, it’s also relative. “We’re mostly ‘outperforming’ by ‘not doing as badly,’ ” says James Brown, chief economist at the state Department of Labor. A truly robust recovery here will depend on the strength of a national rebound that now appears to be losing steam. For retailer Robert Schwartz, signs of hope started to appear in March, after the recession had taken a 20% chunk out of sales at his three Eneslow specialty shoe shops. Customers are starting to return, he says, but they’re buying only what they need, not what they want. “It’s incremental daylight, not exponential daylight, because we were looking at numbers that were horrific,” Mr. Schwartz says. “It’s cautious optimism, not a real optimism.” OPINION: “Increased jobs = increased consumer spending = increased tax revenues = reduced government subsidies = stronger profits = a stronger economy”, says Leonard Steinberg head of the Luxuryloft team and managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman. WEST SIDE/CHELSEA GET CONNECTED TO MIDTOWN WITH 7 SUBWAY EXPANSION.Friday, July 16th, 2010
“For decades, people have talked about the Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s Far West Side as a potential opportunity to provide new office space, housing, parks and jobs adjacent to the world’s premier business district, but nothing ever happened,” says Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a statement. “We’re acting to make sure that it does.” Up next will be work on station entrances and finishes and support facilities such as ventilation and traction power substations. The new service is expected to open in December 2013, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Whether that new service includes a stop at Tenth Avenue and 41st Street, a block east and seven blocks north of its current terminus at Eleventh Avenue and 34th Street, remains to be seen. The Tenth Avenue stop was originally planned but was scrapped in 2008 when the Hudson Yards Development Corp. said the funding wasn’t there to build two stations. However, following a lobbying campaign led by the Real Estate Board of New York, the Bloomberg administration earlier this month said it was applying for $3 million in federal TIGER II grants for a feasibility study on reinstating the Tenth Avenue station, which would cost about $550 million to build—money neither the MTA nor the city says it can spare. As reported in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, the administration’s proposed redesign of the Tenth Avenue stop would entail building a station with two entrances and two separate platforms, one for eastbound trains and one for those continuing west to the line’s new terminus at Eleventh Avenue. This would allow the station to be built after the rest of the extension is completed, assuming that funds become available. Completion of the tunneling portion of the 7 line extension, which involved a pair of 1,000-ton tunnel boring machines, occurs a few weeks after another milestone in the redevelopment of Manhattan’s Far West Side. In late May, Related Cos.—originally chosen in 2008 to develop the Hudson Yards project—announced that it had signed a binding contract on a 99-year lease with the MTA for the 26-acre site. It came to the agreement with a new general partner, Oxford Properties Group, the real estate investment and development arm of Canadian pension fund OMERS, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System. The new agreement, approved by the MTA’s board this past spring, delays closing on the project until certain triggers are reached in the city’s real estate market. Related will not be obligated to close on the deal, and start paying its 99-year lease, until Midtown’s office availability rate declines to 11%, apartment sale prices reach an average $1,200 per square foot and the AIA Architectural Billings Index hits 50. Currently, the availability rate in Midtown is 13.7%, according to CB Richard Ellis, while Prudential Douglas Elliman puts the average apartment price at $1,051 per square foot. Work on the Hudson Yards project, which will also include construction of elevated platforms over the Eastern and Western Rail Yards that are in daily use by the MTA’s Long Island Rail Road, is expected to begin after the 7 extension is done. Soon Midtowners will easily be able to access the recently opened CHELSEA COVE PARK at 25th Street and the West Side highway. Eleventh Avenue continues its ascent….. NEW YORK: THE BEST GLOBAL CITY?Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 New York fares well in comparison to other global capitals following the economic downturn of 2008, according to Cities of Opportunity, an annual report on what makes cities thrive, released in a report by the Partnership for New York City and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The report analyzes how twenty-one global cities perform as centers of business opportunity, according to 58 variables in 10 indicator areas. New York City holds the top spot in two categories and ranks in the top 6 cities in 8 of the ten categories. New York City and other long-standing world business capitals have weathered a global recession with core economic assets intact but challenges to our pre-eminence are emerging from cities that people find more livable and affordable. Mature cities will need to keep down the costs of living and doing business and improve quality of life to retain top talent and the best jobs in an increasingly competitive world.
#1 in Technology IQ and Innovation, an indicator of a city’s ability to adapt to and take advantage of technological advances in the global economy. #3 in Economic Clout, which indicates a city’s ability to influence world markets, attract investment, and stimulate growth. London and Paris take first and second place. # 1 in the Lifestyle Assets category. As with Economic Clout, this category favors larger, more mature cities that have well-established entertainment, tourism, fashion and culinary industries. # 2 in the Intellectual Capacity category, beat out by Paris, followed by Tokyo, London, Seoul, and Chicago, dependent primarily on a city’s share of top universities and medical schools, as well as its percentage of population with higher education. # 13 out of the 21 cities surveyed in the Cost category, which the report cites as one of the most basic considerations for business location and expansion decisions, own from #9 (out of 20 cities) in last year’s report. New York City fares particularly poorly in cost of living and cost of business occupancy. Los Angeles, Toronto and Chicago rank in the top five. # 6 in the Sustainability category (tied with London). Stockholm is first, followed by Sydney and Frankfurt. We received a poor rating in air quality and carbon footprint, reflecting the challenges of a densely developed and highly trafficked city. # 8 in Demographics and Livability, which measures viable housing options, commute times, climate, healthcare, and education. “Second cities” consistently outperform historically dominant “power” cities here. # 4 in Transportation and Infrastructure # 3 in Ease of Doing Business #6 in Health, Safety and Security. This all bodes well for our city that seems to have weathered the recession almost as boldly as it weathered 9/11! |
It is always the same story. A burden on many for the benefits of a few. It is time that our politicians take a strong stand. Why would the public sector employees have such golden pension plans and health plans. Their claim that is only fair to them is a plot that end up increasing taxes and take money from their neighbors who don’t even have half of their benefits.
Add to that, the rubber room. This backlog in the teacher discipline system is costing taxpayers $65Million per year. We pay as they watch movies on DVD players, sometimes for years.
Outrageous!