CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS NEW YORK BUSINESS® JULY 9–22, 2018 | PRICE $3.00 DOUBLE ISSUE SHEDDING BLIGHT After eight years perfecting Urban Umbrella’s design, Andres Cortes is ready to free the city from dismal sidewalk sheds PAGE 18 VOL. XXXIV, NOS. 28, 29 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM PRIVATE THE LIST PLUS: SEVEN CARTERS Largest DEVELOPMENTS construction FIGHTING companies TO WATCH BACK P. 14 P. 17 P. 5 NEWSPAPER P001_CN_20180709.indd 1 7/6/18 5:43 PM JULY 9 - 22, 2018 CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS FROM THE NEWSROOM | AARON ELSTEIN | SENIOR REPORTER Cover story IN THE FALL OF 2015, Gary Belsky, then a contributing editor, suggested I write a story about all the scaolding and ugly con- struction sheds cluttering the city’s sidewalks. Belsky had won a prestigious Loeb Award as a Crain’s reporter for chronicling the massive Crazy Eddie fraud, so he knew a good story when he saw one. But I wasn’t quite sold on his scaold idea. I thought, Who really cares about this stu? It turns out, lots of people. P. at January 2016 article explaining why scaolds cover 18 so many sidewalks, are so uniformly ugly and sometimes stay 14 THE LIST standing for decades is one of the most popular stories Crain’s IN THIS ISSUE Top construction companies has published since clicks started being counted. Personally my 17 DEVELOPMENTS TO WATCH favorite part of reporting it was checking whether Milwaukee 3 EDITORIAL Seven projects could portend Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker was related to Milwaukee con- 4 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT what’s next in local real estate tractor Reinhold Uecker, who rst patented scaolding in 1938. 5 WASTE MANAGEMENT 18 LET THERE BE LIGHT (Spoiler alert: He isn’t.) A startup seeks to tackle 8 SPOTLIGHT the scourge of sidewalk sheds Revisiting the topic for this issue’s feature about a potential Big business designing clothes salve for the scaolding scourge served as a useful reminder that for short men 22 FOR THE RECORD in this city, good stories, like sidewalk sheds, are everywhere. 9 HEALTH CARE 23 GOTHAM GIGS Teaching Bronx kids the power 10 VIEWPOINTS of pictures Vol. XXXIV, Nos. 28, 29, July 9, 2018—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for double issues Jan. 1, June 25, July 9, July 23, Aug. 6, Aug. 20 and Dec. 24, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing ofces. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, PO Box 433279, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9681. 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) ©Entire contents copyright 2018 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. BUCK ENNIS 2 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | JULY 9, 2018 P002_CN_20180709.indd 2 7/6/18 4:28 PM WHAT’S NEW JULY 9, 2018 AGENDANew Yorkers paying the price as scales tip against development he game has been played in New York for years. Needing a zoning change to make a project viable, a developer requests more space than needed to turn a pro t. e community objects, and elected o cials negotiate for something smaller. T e developer shrinks the proposal, the opponents are appeased, and the politicians pat themselves on the back. It’s a lousy system that has helped make the basic necessity of nding shelter in New York more expensive, leaving millions of people with little or no disposable income or spare time—and 60,000 with no home at all. THE TOWER e problem is that the scales are tipped the wrong way. During the planned for 80 Flatbush Ave. public-review process for zoning changes, almost no one but the devel- in Downtown oper advocates for more housing, because the people who would bene t Brooklyn directly—those who will live there and the workers who will build it— don’t know it yet. New units reduce the cost of housing citywide, but one Still, some City Council members block all market-rate units in their project’s impact is too small to motivate the countless indirect bene cia- district, making things worse. And the game of reduction continues. Last ries to speak at a hearing or rally. In contrast, local opponents are moti- month Borough President Eric Adams cheered a planned 986-foot tower vated. e negative e ects of a project are concentrated on them, and they at 80 Flatbush Ave. for its proximity to Brooklyn’s biggest transit hub, can pressure their local politicians. yet called for lowering density and lopping To be sure, there has been progress. Politics strangle development, driving o 386 feet to placate nearby row-house Mayor Bill de Blasio wisely pushes for apart- owners. at would achieve nothing—the ment projects to be more a ordable rather up housing costs and pushing people brownstones still would be dwarfed—except than smaller. A few other elected o cials farther and farther from their job to prevent construction of about 200 units in have come to understand that limiting hous- a city that needs every one it can get. ing increases its cost—which leads people to Improving land-use policy would let live far from job centers. Urban planners, civic groups such as Open New more people live where they are most productive, help businesses attract York and a drumbeat of news articles have spotlighted the issue. “Arti cially talent, take pressure o the subways and give families more time to spend constricted housing supply pushes demand for new housing into poorer together. e mayor’s new city charter panel should propose changes to neighborhoods, where new entrants outbid existing renters,” a New York the development-strangling dynamic. And council members ought to do magazine column said, bemoaning “a zero-sum competition for housing.” what’s best for all residents, not their own political career. — THE EDITORS FINE PRINT The appetite for venture capital–backed meal-delivery services is dwindling. Last week Munchery announced 78 employees would lose their jobs as four food-preparation sites around the city closed. The rm, which also is ceasing delivery in Los Angeles and Seattle, has burned through $120 million since launching in 2010, according to Bloomberg News. BY GERALD SCHIFMAN STATS 25 WORDS OR LESS MINUTES SAVED ON SECOND SINCE THREE SECOND AVENUE SUBWAY stations opened on New Year’s Day AND THE CITY I connected with her 2017, congestion has eased on the Upper East Side. “campaign—a young Years it took for the Second woman taking on an Avenue subway to open after icon. She didn’t have 44 construction began the money [Joseph] CHANGE IN AVERAGE VEHICLE SPEED, 2016–2018 Increase in Upper East Side ride- % hail pickups from 2016 to 2017, Crowley had. She had Lexington Avenue +13.6% 35 compared with 63% citywide the gumption” Third Avenue +7.4% % Drop in Upper East Side taxi trips in the rst —Elizabeth Holtzman, elected to the month of Second Avenue subway service Second Avenue +8.3% from a year earlier, versus -11% citywide House at age 31 in 1972, on Alexandria -36 Ocasio-Cortez, 28, who could be the First Avenue +9.1% youngest woman elected to Congress SOURCE: City Department of Transportation ISTOCK RENDERING COURTESY ALLOY DEVELOPMENT, JULY 9, 2018 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3 P003_CN_20180709.indd 3 7/6/18 5:36 PM IN CASE YOU MISSED IT CRAINSNEW YORK BUSINESS president K.C. Crain senior executive vice president Chris Crain HUTCHINS group publisher Mary Kramer EDITORIAL Barbarians at the gates managing editor Brendan O’Connor assistant managing editors Erik Engquist, of Madison Square Garden Jeanhee Kim, Robin D. Schatz copy desk chief Telisha Bryan HE HEARTS OF NEW YORK SPORTS fans skipped a beat art director Carolyn McClain photographer Buck Ennis last month, when James Dolan announced he was look- digital editor Gabriella Iannetta ing to spin o the Knicks and the Rangers into a separate senior reporters Joe Anuta, Aaron Elstein, T Matthew Flamm, Daniel Geiger public company, possibly laying the groundwork for a sale of the reporters Will Bredderman, teams. Dolan insists he has no plans to sell them, but Wall Street Jonathan LaMantia analysts have observed that the chairman of e Madison Square data reporter Gerald Schifman columnist Greg David Garden Co. looks to be a few hundred million dollars short of the contributors Tom Acitelli, Cara Eisenpress, $2 billion or more he needs for the cutting-edge performance Cheryl S. Grant, Yoona Ha, Chris Kobiella, Miriam Kreinin Souccar venues he plans to build in Las Vegas and London. Selling some to contact the newsroom: or all of the teams would help advance Dolan’s quest to become www.crainsnewyork.com/staff the world’s leading concert impresario and free him from being lambasted on the local tabloids’ back pages. 212.210.0100 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017-4024 Plenty of wealthy fans would love to get their hands on the teams, but Silver Lake, a Silicon Valley private-equity ADVERTISING giant, might have the inside track. In February it disclosed owning a 6.3% stake in MSG. www.crainsnewyork.com/advertise Firms such as Silver Lake typically aren’t content with being minority shareholders in public companies; they advertising director Irene Bar-Am, prefer to own things outright. But Silver Lake co-founder Glenn Hutchins is a big basketball fan. He owns a piece 212.210.0133, [email protected] senior account managers of the Boston Celtics and last year said his “secret life hack” is watching a recorded game while reading e Wall Lauren Black, Zita Doktor, Rob Pierce, Street Journal and working out on his Exercycle.