When given an ultimatum, most employees at some major real estate firms got the jab
City developers who gave their employees the ultimatum of getting vaccinated or losing their job saw positive results: Most complied and got vaccinated The Durst Organization and RXR Realty lost only one employee each since making the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory for their workers. The two major firms both struck a hard line on Covid-19 vaccines earlier this year, telling their workers that they would need to either get the shot by Sept. 6 or get a new job, with limited exceptions for medical or religious reasons. At Durst, one person of the 350 people for whom the policy applied decided…
Author Crain's New York Business
The Proliferation of Plastics and Toxic Chemicals Must End
As the United States comes to grips with the climate crisis, fossil fuels will slowly recede from being primary sources of energy. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that the petrochemical industry is counting on greatly increasing the production of plastics and toxic chemicals made from fossil fuels to profit from its reserves of oil and gas That transition is why the challenges of climate, plastic pollution and chemical toxicity — which at first might each seem like distinct problems — are actually interrelated and require a systems approach to resolve. The danger is that if we…
Date 2021-08-31
Author Marty Mulvihill, Gretta Goldenman and Arlene Blum
Goldman Sachs sweetens the pot with its own highrise honeybees
Goldman Sachs has joined the growing number of property owners to add beekeeping to their environmental conservation efforts The asset management giant with a $2 trillion portfolio is partnering with Alvéole, an organization that helps businesses, schools, and organizations bring bees to buildings. Together, they are rolling out a nationwide rooftop beekeeping initiative at select office, industrial, and multifamily investments across the US. The program launched at 30 locations this month and is poised to become a standard offering at eligible Goldman Sachs real estate investments. The partnership, the first of its kind with an institutional real estate investor, will…
Author Real Estate Weekly
Here are the office landlords embracing the flexible office market
The pandemic’s disruption on the city’s office market has some of its largest landlords switching gears and offering tenants more choices with their own bespoke flexible office offshoots While companies like WeWork and Knotel led the alternative office market as operators and managers, the city’s larger property owners are jumping on the trend to capitalize on their own empty real estate. That includes offering smaller, pre-built suites and shorter lease terms than usual to accommodate an uncertain office environment and the evolving needs of businesses and tenants. "They don’t want to spend the time to build out the suite themselves,"…
Date 2021-08-27
Author Natalie Sachmechi
Offices Dangle Beehives and Garden Plots to Coax Workers Back
The investment company Nuveen has spent $120 million renovating its office tower at 730 Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, overhauling the lobby, devoting the second floor to amenities and refurbishing a 22nd-floor terrace And the finishing touch? Two beehives on a seventh-floor terrace. Following the latest trend in office perks, Nuveen hired a beekeeper to teach tenants about their tiny new neighbors and harvest honey for them to take home. “In conversations with tenants, I get more questions about that than anything else,” said Brian Wallick, Nuveen’s director of New York office and life science investments. Office workers who were…
Date 2021-08-25
Author Jane Margolies