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Bits & Bytes  

SILVERSTEIN SEEKS MORE SUBSIDIES; PORT AUTHORITY IN CRISIS;
BROOKFIELD PLACE'S LUXE SHOPPING; HOT TRIBECA YOGA

Real estate developer Larry Silverstein at the ribbon cutting for 4 World Trade Center on Nov. 13, 2013. Silverstein has a 99-year lease on Towers 2, 3 and 4 World Trade Center. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

 

"For a Ground Zero Developer Seeking Subsidies, More Is Never Enough," New York Times, 3/31/14. In a scathing article, The New York Times lambastes Larry Silverstein for repeatedly seeking (and getting) public subsidies for his World Trade Center towers. "The developer and philanthropist Larry A. Silverstein has cut a striking figure in New York City. He owns the H.M.S. Bounty-size yacht favored by his peers and has dominated the rebuilding of ground zero for a decade," says The Times. "Along the way, he has internalized a developer's rule of thumb in New York: Only a rube puts much of his own money at risk. Billions of dollars in Liberty bonds, insurance money, developer fees: Year after year, Mr. Silverstein has shaken the public tree and benefits have fallen to the ground. Construction of 4 World Trade Center is completed and it stands about half empty, with commitments from just two tenants: New York City and State. Now Mr. Silverstein wants to complete his 70-something-story 3 World Trade Center. He has found just one prospective tenant for it. City and state officials, ever helpful, agreed to give that company, GroupM, a $15 million cash subsidy and tax breaks worth about $75 million. Now Mr. Silverstein wants to shake the tree again." For the complete article, click here.

"Report Traces Port Authority's Flaws to a Crumbling Business Model," New York Times, 4/1/14. "As the furor over the [George Washington Bridge] lane closings has grown, engulfing Mr. Christie and several of his top aides, a review of [the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey] operations suggests that its familiar flaws - mismanagement, patronage, rivalries between the two states - are secondary to a decaying business model, done in by a relentless desire to expand beyond the agency's core transportation functions," says The New York Times. "In recent decades, according to a new report, the agency has increasingly yielded to governors on fiscally dubious projects, contributing to a need in recent years to seek new revenue from bridge and tunnel toll increases. The report, released on Tuesday from the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University, says the agency spent more than $800 million from 2002 to 2012 on "regional projects" chosen by the governors' offices. In the coming years, the pace of spending on zero-return state projects is expected to accelerate." For the complete article, click here.

"Brookfield Place's Luxe Shopping And Chic Eats, Decoded," Fashion Week Daily, 3/31/14. Hot on the trail of "Condé's chicettes," who are slated to move into 1 World Trade Center in November, Fashion Week Daily took a behind-the-scenes look at the retailers who will open up shop at Brookfield Place (formerly called the "World Financial Center"), right across West Street in early 2015. "We rang up Ed Hogan, Brookfield Place's national director of retail leasing, to discuss the exceedingly upscale shopping, featuring the likes of Salvatore Ferragamo, Diane von Furstenberg, and Michael Kors, as well as the smorgasbord of eateries heading to the tip of Manhattan this May," says Fashion Week Daily. Hogan revealed that Brookfield is "developing a concierge program with a number of luxury brands. You can do valet parking. You can also have your luxury items sent to your home country, hotel, or home when you're done shopping." For the complete article, click here.

"Bethany Lyons on Opening Manhattan's First Baptiste Yoga Studio," Racked.com, 3/24/14. Yoga with Bethany Lyons is hot. She "swept our 2014 Best New Yoga Studio Poll with Lyons Den-a Tribeca space offering Baptiste-style classes (the first of their kind in Manhattan)," says Racked.com. Yoga with Ms. Lyons takes place in a room heated to between 90º and 95º F. "You'll definitely sweat," she says. Baptiste yoga "can be a bit intense," says Racked, but "Bethany herself is not. She bans mirrors in her studio, lets her pooch Josie have the run of Lyons Den, occasionally plays music during class, and starts her day with coffee-not green juice." For the complete article, click here.