Exhibitors fight Javits teardown Sun, 20 May 2012 05:59:00 EST After nearly six months of intense meetings and conference calls, senior executives of companies that produce the vast majority of the shows at the Javits Center took a bold public stand, sending a letter to the governor late last month stating their opposition to the demolition of the Far West Side facility. The letter was also distributed to some 600 officials, including state and city legislators. The executives insist they will not patronize the much larger venue in Ozone Park, Queens, at the Aqueduct raceway that is to be built by the casino operator Genting Americas. They prefer a proposed, but troubled, development plan at Willets Point near Citi Field, which is closer to Manhattan. "Javits customers are adamant that the Javits Center remain open long term," their letter stated. Calling themselves Friends of Javits, the group is composed of 21 of the largest trade-show companies in the business—which produce such events as the International Restaurant & Foodservice Show and the New York International Gift Fair—as well as organizations such as the Toy Industry Association and the National Retail Federation, which also produce big events at Javits. |
There's a new No. 1 in town Sun, 20 May 2012 05:59:00 EST The ever-evolving device at the center of people's lives and businesses has fueled demand for data and propelled the telecommunications sector's growth. And no company has spent more time at the forefront of that fiercely competitive industry than Verizon Communications Inc. The strength of its wireless unit explains why Verizon Communications has taken the No. 1 slot on Crain's annual ranking of the New York area's biggest publicly traded companies based on revenue. The telecom giant holds the position for the first time, with 2011 revenues of $111 billion, up 6% from the prior year. It overtakes JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, both of which continued to be buffeted in the wake of the financial crisis. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with British telecom Vodafone (which owns a 45% stake), generated $70.2 billion in revenues last year, up 11% from 2010. Despite a saturated market, the Verizon unit signed up 5 million new subscribers last year, giving it an industry-leading total of 107.8 million. And there's more growth to come. Verizon is poised to bring wireless connections to everything from GPS systems to customer billing, and to offer television shows on mobile devices, pending regulatory approval of a deal with cable operators. Most critically, Verizon is rolling out a next-generation high-speed wireless network, called 4G Long Term Evolution, or LTE. The aim is to provide faster video and data downloads and safeguard a reputation for quality that over the years has helped the company outperform archrival AT&T. "The network is the foundation of who we are," said Nancy Clark, Northeast area president of Verizon Wireless. "No one else is close." At least not yet. Verizon's LTE service, which is more cost-efficient and up to 10 times faster than 3G, covers two-thirds of the country. AT&T's, by contrast, will not be fully deployed until the end of 2013. |
The dish on Grand Central Sun, 20 May 2012 05:59:00 EST  The two spots—one in the cavernous, marble-clad Vanderbilt Hall, the other on a balcony that's used for storage but overlooks the eastern end of the food market with views down 43rd Street to the United Nations—are available only to restaurants. MTA officials believe the two sites could generate up to $20 million in revenue annually for the proprietors. Requests for proposals will start going out later this month. Operators will be selected by year's end so that the restaurants can open in 2013, when the landmarked train station will celebrate its 100th anniversary. The search comes nearly six months after a huge Apple store replaced restaurant Metrazur on the East Balcony in the station's Great Hall, drawing even more traffic to the bustling commuter hub. "We think this is a very exciting opportunity," said Nancy Marshall, director of Grand Central Terminal development for the MTA. "There has already been incredible interest from restaurants." With an average of 750,000 people passing through the terminal daily, an amount that swells to 1 million during the annual holiday fair in Vanderbilt Hall, the potential upside for restaurateurs could be huge. "Grand Central is underserved by restaurants," said Amira Yunis, an executive vice president at real estate brokerage CBRE. The planned eatery on the west end of Vanderbilt Hall could go a long way to changing that. It could be as large as 12,000 square feet—roughly four times the size of an average restaurant in the city. Its center will be a 2,100-square-foot space that used to be a hair salon. The operator must place some tables in the Beaux Arts hall itself and could take nearly half its space, or roughly 5,100 square feet. Additionally, the restaurant could extend as far back as the Times Square Shuttle passage, where a baked-goods shop sits now, a location that could be used as a takeout shop. The other spot up for grabs is roughly 5,000 square feet on the second story above the food market. That space currently houses storage units and an MTA police locker room. |
A new dawn for Sunset Park Sun, 20 May 2012 05:59:00 EST  "Look, I know it sounds crazy," said Mr. Brooks, a commercial broker who's pitching 60,000 square feet of industrial space on 36th Street to music-related businesses, offering them free build-outs and rents of $20 a square foot. "But sometimes you gotta think big and dream big." He's got company. As the city's economy slowly picks up speed, Sunset Park's vast collection of underutilized factory buildings is drawing more interest from a wide variety of potential users with visions of bringing everything from manufacturing and music-making to acres of vegetables to the area. In an early step in that direction, city officials cheered the sale of a 1.1 million-square-foot warehouse at 850 Third Ave. last year formerly owned by the federal government. Vacant since 2000, the hulking edifice could ultimately attract light-manufacturing businesses that would generate up to 1,300 jobs, according to estimates from the city's Economic Development Corp. Plans by a private developer to build the nation's largest rooftop garden atop the site—whose 100,000 square feet could yield as much as a million pounds of produce a year—has locavores drooling. |
© Neuss 2012 - Mandarina