ASKED & ANSWERED Making the case that vaccination is the right choice PAGE 11 INNER CIRCLE Who’s who in Eric Adams’ camp PAGE 14 CRAINSNEWYORK.COM | DOUBLE ISSUE | JULY 26-AUGUST 1, 2021 CONSTRUCTION INSIDE GAME Construction industry struggles to restart after pandemic lockdown and remote work, but of ce build-outs offer a rare bright spot BY EDDIE SMALL ew York’s hard hats are going to need to start using their inside voices. Interior o ce renovations are on the upswing, providing construction workers with an unexpected job boom coming out of the pandemic as work slows on major new residential and commercial projects. N“ ere’s a great deal of work there with people rethinking their o ces at all di erent levels, from consolidating it to reinventing the whole way that work is done,” Todd DeGarmo, CEO of Studios Architecture, said of the current climate. four-day-a-week or split-sta ng Companies prepping for a return schedule, so we’re seeing a decent to the o ce are hiring construction amount of activity in that area right rms for jobs such as in- now.” stalling glass partitions in INSIDE is type of construction between cubicles and in- Largest work started to increase creasing the amount of in- construction most notably in the past dependent space available rms Page 12 two or three months, Co- to each worker, said Lou letti said. It comes at a time Coletti, president of the when the overall outlook Building Trade Employers' Associa- for the industry is not especially tion. rosy as the city continues to emerge “A lot of companies are taking ex- from a pandemic that ground non- isting space and making adjust- essential construction to a halt ments–spacing people out more,” during the spring of 2020. he said. “Perhaps they won’t need In the rst quarter of this year, as much space for as many people ISTOCK as they go to a three-day-a-week or See RESTART on page 26 POLITICS Political consultants cash in on election ‘gold mine’ BY BRIAN PASCUS AND into a multimillion-dollar bonanza. Of that, about $39 million went to sulting all collected more money Mayoral candidates AMANDA GLODOWSKI Mayoral candidates paid their mayoral candidates and $70 million from candidates this year than they shelled out $40 hired guns more than $40 million went to the comptroller, borough have in the previous two elections. ew York's political consul- during the primary season as the president and City Council races, e amount of money political million to boost their tants cashed in like never city’s matching funds program said Matt Sollars, a spokesman for rms and their vendors received pro le during rst before during this year's pumped roughly $109 million into the city Campaign Finance Board. from citywide campaigns grew sig- Nelection cycle, turning ranked- Big Apple campaigns, a Crain’s New Local political consulting rms ni cantly compared to the most ranked-choice choice voting and the city's re- York Business review of public - such as Red Horse Strategies, the primary formed public nancing system nance data shows. Parkside Group and Dunton Con- See CAMPAIGNS on page 16 VOL. 37, NO. 27 © 2021 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. SPOTLIGHT Retirement SOHO FIRM bene ts HAS ITS DAY THANKS TO plan for SMART DOG nurses NEWSPAPER COLLARS peters out PAGE 27 PAGE 3 P001_CN_20210726.indd 1 7/23/21 2:50 PM FROM THE NEWSROOM | CORY SCHOUTEN | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF FINANCE Why you need Crain’s JPMorgan entices Dimon New York Business to stay put with $50M bonus NEW YORK CITY and its business community are chugging through the fits and starts of a rein- BY AARON ELSTEIN the year to spend more Although JPMorgan cit- vention that will be felt for decades to come. time with his family. ed “a highly competitive Livelihoods, families and fortunes are at stake. wo weeks ago Jamie Dimon Dimon’s retention bo- landscape for executive Helping you understand and navigate how swatted aside a question nus comes in the form of leadership talent” when these changes will affect you, your business and whether JPMorgan Chase 1.5 million stock options. granting Dimon’s bonus, your city is the most important story we’re tack- might tackle rising expens- Terry Adamson, managing the CEO has repeatedly ling these days at Crain’s New York Business, Tes by compensating employees less. director at Technical said over the years that he which I joined as editor-in-chief last month. “We’re going to be competitive in Compensation Advisers, BLOOMBERG plans to keep his job for a It’s an exciting time to work here, and to read comp no matter what it takes,” he estimated the grant is DIMON while. When asked by an our work, and I wanted to share a bit about how insisted. worth $50 million. Dimon analyst in 2019 when he BUCK ENNIS we’re aiming to serve you even better as most That goes for his compensation cannot exercise the options for five planned to step down, he an- A GREAT other local media outlets are cutting back, mak- too. The 65-year-old, who’s been years or sell the shares for 10 years. swered, “Five years—maybe four ing trustworthy and useful information harder CEO since 2006, was awarded an He was awarded $31.5 million in to- now.” CRAIN’S to come by. unusual retention bonus last Tues- tal compensation last year and con- He threatened to quit in 2013, That’s not the story here. We are investing in day to persuade him to stay on for trols 9.4 million JPMorgan shares, when the city comptroller’s office STORY our digital products and on-the-ground report- years to come, and that could boost worth $1.4 billion. led a crusade to strip him of his role COVERS ing to deliver more news and information that’s his pay by tens of millions of dollars. as bank chairman, but the move- useful in your career and life. We’re doing the “The special award reflects the Booming business ment felt well short of the investor POWER, homework, digging into the data and making the board’s desire for Mr. Dimon to con- With the stock market at record votes necessary. Dimon survived a MONEY AND phone calls to help explain how our city works tinue to lead the firm for a further highs and interest rates ultralow, 2014 throat cancer diagnosis, and and how our readers can get ahead. significant number of years,” a filing business in financial services has last year he required emergency PROPERTY We also want you to enjoy what you read in read. never been better, and pay is rising heart surgery. Crain’s—to learn something new, to meet and The grant would seem to end the accordingly. Under his leadership, JPMorgan connect with interesting and ambitious people. five-year parlor game of guessing At Goldman Sachs, compensa- has become banking’s most suc- How are we prioritizing our time? A great Crain’s story should reveal who might succeed Dimon. Two tion and benefits costs have risen cessful institution, with a market something new about the future of power, money and property in New leading contenders, consumer 47% this year. At Morgan Stanley, value of $450 billion—about as York City. That’s why we told you about key players in the inner circle of banking co-chiefs Marianne Lake they’re up 28%. BlackRock recently much as Bank of America and Citi- Eric Adams, our presumptive next mayor (on page 14), and followed the and Jennifer Piepszak, may have to granted all employees an 8% raise group put together. The stock has money (on page 1) to show how consultants cashed in on an election look elsewhere for the top job. Gor- effective Sept. 1. The average bonus outperformed its peers’ for many “gold mine.” We warned you about “hybrid hell”—the next return-to-of- don Smith, co-president and co- on Wall Street rose 10% last year, to years, and earlier this month JP- fice challenge—and profiled a hotel’s pandemic “babysitter.” We shared chief operating officer, has an- $184,000, the state comptroller’s of- Morgan reported $12 billion in which startup founders are moving to New York, and why a city with an nounced he will retire at the end of fice said. quarterly net income. ■ 11.4% unemployment rate has more than 300,000 unfilled jobs. And there’s much more to come. We are focused on delivering enter- prise journalism that makes Crain’s New York Business a must-read for TRANSPORTATION anyone who wants to make it in business here. We’ve boosted our pres- ence on social media so you can more easily join in the conversation, added summaries to our homepage and newsletters to give you more in- FAA approves LaGuardia AirTrain sights at a glance, started a real estate Deals of the Day feature to go deep- er on a subject all New Yorkers care about, and launched exciting new events that create a sense of community, such as our Excellence in Diver- as opponents consider lawsuit sity and Inclusion Awards. We’d love to hear from you as we continue to evolve our strategy. Please take our reader survey at CrainsNewYork.com/survey. I’m also happy to hear BY BRIAN PASCUS from you directly via email, at [email protected]. Thanks for reading. he Federal Aviation Adminis- tration last Tuesday approved the estimated $2.1 billion Air- NOMINATIONS TTrain project to connect LaGuardia Airport to Midtown via rail despite CRAIN’’S NEW YORK BUSINESS 2021 opposition from Queens Rep.