THE HIGH COST of KOSHER Inside the Often Opaque, Always Complex and Suddenly Growing Business of Making Sure Kosher Restaurants Stay That Way by AARON ELSTEIN PAGE 14
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CRAINS 20160307-NEWS--0001-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 3/4/2016 7:49 PM Page 1 ® MARCH 7-13, 2016 | PRICE $3.00 NEW YORK BUSINESS THE HIGH COST OF KOSHER Inside the often opaque, always complex and suddenly growing business of making sure kosher restaurants stay that way By AARON ELSTEIN PAGE 14 VOL. XXXII, NO. 10 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM THE HEALTH DON’T HAVE THE LIST 10 SYSTEM THAT FIOS YET? NEW YORK’S 5 COULD SAVE HERE’S WHY LARGEST WOMEN- BROOKLYN P. 1 0 OWNED COMPANIES P. 7 P. 12 NEWSPAPER 71486 01068 0 CERTAIN RESULTS for UNCERTAIN TIMES. For the 19th consecutive year, CBRE has led the way for deal-making in New York City. In Crain’s list of Top Manhattan Ofce Leases for 2015, CBRE completed 19 of the top 50 transactions across Manhattan—including six of the top ten. Time and again, we’ve proven our leadership—proof positive that CBRE consistently creates advantage for the clients we serve. 20160307-NEWS--0003-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 3/4/2016 7:58 PM Page 1 MARCHCRAINS 7-13, 2016 FROM THE NEWSROOM | JEREMY SMERD Obamacare’s unlikely ally IN THIS ISSUE 4 AGENDA KAREN IGNAGNI, 6 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT the president and chief executive of Gearing up for EmblemHealth, stopped by our newsroom last week, part 7 HEALTH CARE a vote on the mayor’s of an informal listening tour that she has embarked on 8 WHO OWNS THE BLOCK affordable- housing plan since taking the reins of the health insurer six months ago. 9 REAL ESTATE I was interested in meeting Ignagni because I had 10 INSTANT EXPERT written about her when I was a health care reporter and 11 she was helping to shape Obamacare as the head of VIEWPOINTS America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s 12 THE LIST lobbying group. Having FEATURES represented companies that many Americans loathe, Oh, it was legislators 14 COVER STORY Ignagni exhibits the kind of discipline that helps her avoid controversy. “Oh, it was legislators in Congress “in Congress who 23 GOTHAM GIGS who shaped health reform,” she demurred. shaped health 24 EXECUTIVE MOVES You might remember that insurers embraced health reform,” she demurred 25 SNAPS reform rather than fight it. This was smart politics, and 26 FOR THE RECORD Ignagni deserves her share of the credit. Rising costs over a 27 PHOTO FINISH generation had begun to hollow out the number of small businesses that could afford to offer employees health coverage, to say nothing of the ability of individuals to buy it. Insurers’ business was shrinking. Health reform, meanwhile, offered the possibility of an instant market. Advocates wanted to prohibit insurers from denying coverage based on pre- existing conditions. To agree to this, insurers demanded two things: a requirement that all individuals buy insurance and subsidies to help them do so. “You can’t have one without the other,” she said. “If you have guaranteed issue, you need people to participate.” I asked whether the rhetoric among Republican presidential candidates worried her. She responded with an understatement: “I think a number of folks on the Republican side have expressed concerns.” P. 23 Republicans call Obamacare a disaster, despite the fact that 20 million Victor Hogue Americans are newly insured. They want to repeal it, but show a willful disdain of health economics. Donald Trump says he’s in favor of guaranteed issue, but, like the others, is against any requirement that individuals buy insurance. What Republicans won’t admit is that Obamacare is already baked into every hospital and health insurers’ business through programs intended to improve health care quality and reduce costs. Perhaps this is why Ignagni is unruffled by the GOP’s rhetoric. She was a proselytizer for health policy, and now she is implementing it. Emblem’s focus is on coordinating care between doctors and then giving them a cut of the savings from avoiding unnecessary care. “I have a ON THE COVER different vantage point now,” she said. “An under-the-hood vantage point.” PHOTO: BUCK ENNIS CONFERENCE CALLOUT MARCH 22 DIGITAL DISPATCHES CRAIN’S BUSINESS OF STARTUPS Go to CrainsNewYork.com LEARN HOW to get startups off the READ Oprah Winfrey’s investment in ground and grow them. Panelists Weight Watchers International landed the are Yext CEO Howard Lerman, company $17.5 million worth of Story CEO Rachel Shechtman, media exposure. Cornell Tech’s Adam Schwartz and ■ Small Business Commissioner Market frenzy leaves > Gregg Bishop (pictured) Wall Street steakhouses empty ■ Co-working-space provider JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF WeWork plans to launch a CRIMINAL JUSTICE global venture to lease offices and living 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. spaces to other companies [email protected] ■ Richard Jennings, founder of Goldman Sachs’ mortgage-finance group, dies Vol. XXXII, No. 10, March 7, 2016—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for double issues the weeks of June 27, July 11, July 25, Aug. 8, Aug. 22 and Dec. 19, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., LISTEN to a behind-the-scenes discussion New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address about kosher restaurants and other stories changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207-2912. CrainsNewYork.com/podcast For subscriber service: Call (877) 824-9379. Fax (313) 446-6777. $3.00 a copy, $99.95 one year, $179.95 two years. (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) BUCK ENNIS, BLOOMBERG ©Entire contents copyright 2016 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. MARCH 7, 2016 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3 20160307-NEWS--0004-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 3/4/2016 7:27 PM Page 1 AGENDAWHAT’S NEW MARCH 7, 2016 Solution to the city’s old call-box problem is right in front of us arly in his mayoralty, Rudy Giuliani learned that the curb- side call boxes that pedestrians once used to report police and fire emergencies were doing more harm than good. The WI-FI KIOSKS old call boxes were generating lots of false alarms that wast- like this one would be a Eed resources and sent first responders on pointless missions. huge upgrade Giuliani did the logical thing: He announced that the call boxes, with from the city’s old police and their aging pedestals and deteriorating wiring, would be removed. fire call boxes. A small but vocal minority of New Yorkers went bananas. They rose up in protest, insisting that the boxes were essential lifesaving devices would have to offer New Yorkers something better in their place. and an iconic feature of the city’s streetscape. Politicians in the outer Fortunately, it can. The de Blasio administration is in the process of boroughs kowtowed to residents’ irrational fear that removing the replacing its virtually obsolete pay phones with 7,500 free Wi-Fi hot rarely used, graffiti-strewn call boxes would put their lives at risk. The spots. Anyone will be able to use the new kiosks, called Links, to surf mayor was chastened and bewildered by the public’s reaction. the Web on a provided tablet or their own smartphones, make free Ultimately, opponents persuaded a judge to keep the boxes in place. It domestic phone calls, charge their devices and—yes—call 911. Not only was a classic lesson in small-minded will the project cost taxpayers nothing, city politics. Decaying police and fire call boxes but thanks to the advertising space that Two decades later, the call boxes cost taxpayers $6 million a year and the city’s private partner will sell, the city remain, in worse shape and more will reap more than $500 million over 12 unnecessary than ever. Virtually deliver little besides false alarms. But years. every New Yorker over the age of 12 two bids to remove them have failed Previously, the Bloomberg adminis- has a cellphone, and the call boxes are tration cut a deal with the private sector no longer a part of the public con- to replace the city’s newsstands and bus sciousness. It would not even occur to most people to seek one out in shelters with attractive, modern structures. That agreement is bringing case of an emergency. The 15,000 boxes cost taxpayers more than $6 $1 billion into city coffers, again thanks to ad space. million a year, and 85% of calls from them are false alarms. These two successes should inspire City Hall to seek a similar solution But we cannot rely on common sense to prevail. Ripping out the call for the decaying police and fire boxes. They are relics from a bygone era, boxes and leaving nothing in their place would risk the same hysterical and the false alarms they produce cost money and divert first responders reaction that defeated the plan in 1996 and again in 2011, when a deaf- from real emergencies. Let’s replace them with something useful that not rights group stopped the Bloomberg administration’s attempt. The city only saves the city money but generates revenue as well. – THE EDITORS FINE PRINT The city’s manufacturing sector got a burst of good news in last week’s revised jobs figures. Updated data for 2015 show the number of factory jobs increased by 1,600, to 78,000, meaning the sector has enjoyed two years of modest gains. Initial tallies had the city losing manufacturing jobs last year. BY GERALD SCHIFMAN STATS 25 WORDS OR LESS LUXURY LAG THE RESIDENTIAL real estate market in Manhattan We are all immi- remained strong in 2015, but new data show that AND THE CITY “grants and we are the prices of luxury condos are beginning to ebb.