Tourists are back, not so many office workers.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today is Kathy Wild of the president and the CEO of the New York City Partnership and representing most of the major companies in the city of New York. Well, Kathy Wild, there’s so many things happening in New York.

0:15 Where do you want to start?

0:18 Speaker 2 Well, I would start with the survey that we just published this week that shows that we are in steady state when it comes to people Manhattan office workers returning to the office. It’s the most companies are Now sixty percent of the companies have officially adopted a hybrid work, mostly three days a week in the office during the

0:43 five day work week and two days to work from remote locations.

0:49 Speaker 1 Well, I understand a lot of big companies are putting their foot down and you want people in new office like me five days a week.

0:58 Speaker 2 Well, I’m with you, John, I’ve done the same thing. But most of the big companies are finding that, uh, they really don’t have a choice at this point with the most of them are trying to be flexible. Many of them are urging people to come back. Some are time coming back to likelihood of promotion, et cetera. But

1:23 they’re they’re having difficulty convincing people that they should be coming back to work to the office. They’re supposedly working from wherever they are.

1:33 Speaker 1 Well, But Kathy, you’ve met so many CEOs in your life. A strong, a strong CEO just puts their foot down and say, let the let the pebbles fall as they may, and you’ve got to come to work.

1:49 Speaker 2 That’s true. And most have tried that tactic, and some have some have succeeded. And there are a few that are five days week, but very few. The majority are three days a week in the office as a permanent policy. Now, the good news is only seven percent of the jobs in the city are considered remote jobs, so employers are

2:18 not hiring people with the promise of them being able to work remotely. So we’re very much in a situation where people are in the office sometimes. And the other good news is that employers are saying they’re not For the most part, only ten percent of our survey said they were reducing their office footprint in the city, so

2:41 most of them, in fact, are trading up to the most expensive office base, the brand new office spase, whether it’s husband Yards or one Vanderbilt that most employers are trying to create the most compelling, possible lovely office experience, get their people back.

3:02 Speaker 1 Ground level commercial space is yeah, a lot of problems. What what what are here?

3:11 Speaker 2 Actually the retail space on the key avenues and an area is like soho, it’s thriving. So retail, ground floor retail in those spaces is back again. The problem is in secondary locations, older buildings, and frankly, particularly in those areas like around ten stations where you’ve got you’ve got a lot of illegal activity going on. Uh, the illegal

3:43 marijuana stores have not helped it all there or around the Broadway area. So there’s some areas. But even in Times Square, which you know has its share of problems, Times Square has more more new businesses opening been closed during the pandemic, So even there we’re seeing that. And across the city, across the five boroughs, we’re close to

4:07 fifty thousand new businesses starting since the pend since the end of the lockdown of the pandemic. So we’ve got a lot of good business activity going on. I mean, the overall economy of the city is good. The older commercial office landlords are struggling.

4:29 Speaker 1 Understood, and what is happening with the congestion pricing.

4:35 Speaker 2 Congestion pricing barring any of the lawsuits, any of the court decisions going the other way. Congestion pricing is due to start on June thirty, and that’ll give everybody a chance to see whether or not it has a positive or a negative overall impact. I’m hoping it’s going to be positive, but we’re all going to know pretty soon.

5:02 Speaker 1 I understand. What else do you want to tell all the New Yorkers? Are we going to make that big comeback? Oh?

5:10 Speaker 2 I think you know, we’ve come back so much further than the other big cities across America. I was on a panel this week, virtual panel with the Vocal Alliance talking about remote work and the fate of cities and cities across the nation. They have higher commercial office spased vacancy rates than we do here. They’ve been slower to recover,

5:36 they’ve got bigger crime problems than us. So people, you know, we’re very particular and we want New York to always be number one and everything. But basically we’re doing very well compared to other cities in terms of our recovery from the pandemic and from the crime and issues that stem from that.

6:00 Speaker 1 Understood well. Kathy Wild, thank you so much for updating all New Yorkers and we hope we catch up again.

6:09 Speaker 2 Wilson, Thanks John, it’s great to be with you as always.