Category : Headline

By Al Barbarino The Garden State’s office tenants want more than just a side of fries with their office space. Tenants ranked food service the number one “must have” amenity in an anonymous survey conducted by CBRE last month, followed by a long list of swanky services. “We’re all spending a lot of time, and more time probably than many of us would like to, at work and in our offices,” said CBRE’s Greg Barkan. “So recruiting and retention of talent is paramount for most corporations. Because of that, quality of life features are becoming much more important.” Food service took 22.4 percent of the vote, followed by access to public transit, with 16.4 percent.

Representatives from the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB) and Local 32BJ Service Employees International Union will resume talks today (Wednesday) in a bid to reach a new agreement for services workers before their contract expires at midnight December 31. Officials from both sides have vowed negotiations will go on “round the clock” if necessary. The talks resume after some city politicians took a swipe at building owners and threw their support behind SEIU 32BJ workers.

The industry’s Realty Advisory Board told rallying service workers this week it won’t negotiate a new contract through the press. As hundreds of office cleaners and other commercial building workers marched through the streets of Midtown in a rally organized by 32BJ SEIU, Howard Rothschild, president of the RAB, issued a statement noting: “We’ve said from the start, we want to reach a labor agreement that is fair to both sides and reflects the reality of today’s economy. The union has already authorized a strike if a deal isn’t reached within two weeks. “The workers who keep office buildings clean and running well should be able to make ends meet in our city,” said Mike Fishman, president of 32BJ.

Tenants from the sprawling East Side middle-income housing complex, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, have formed a partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to put together a multi-billion dollar bid to buy the 11,000 apartments and convert them to condos or co-ops. The ST-PCV Tenants Association said on Wednesday that it had chosen Brookfield from a field of suitors looking to partner on a deal to buy the complex back from debtors. The Toronto-based investment firm that is also downtown New York’s biggest office landlord, “shared the goals of tenants,” according to City councilman Dan Garodnick, a former lawyer who now represents the district in City Hall and who has a played a key role brokering the joint venture.