How to industry sign banking new jersey forbearance agreement
but hi everyone and welcome to the latest edition of TRD talks live I'm Eric and Quist senior managing editor at the real deal and I am joined today by three of New York's business leaders one is Andrew Kimball he is the CEO of industry city a major industrial park in Sunset Park Brooklyn and the second is Allan Fishman chairman of ladder capital that is a real estate investment trust with more than six billion dollars in assets and he is also a longtime New York City business leader and finally we are going to be joined shortly by Cathy Wilde who as many of you know is the president and CEO of the partnership for New York City which is the primary business organization in the city representing all of its largest companies so welcome to everyone before we get started I just want to remind all our viewers that we do bring you these webinars three times a week for free Monday Wednesday and Friday at five o'clock but for us to keep doing that we need you to subscribe so please go to the real deal comm and subscribe so we can continue to bring you these presentations which have been very popular because mostly because everyone wants to talk about how we're gonna get through this pandemic and we're gonna do quite a bit of that today but first I wanted the like Alan and Andrew to tell us and all our viewers what exactly they do because not everyone necessarily knows later' capital even though it's a huge company and industry city you may not have ever been to it but it's one of the most important you know business centers in the city as well so Alan let me start with you tell us a little bit about latter capital how long it's been around and where your assets are sure good afternoon everybody first let me say I hope you're all safe and and coping reasonably well with this nightmare I'd also want to say right up front that that I'm not speaking specifically for ladder as we're a public company and with reporting requirements and limitations and all that that said ladders a commercial mortgage REIT principally a commercial mortgage REIT we founded it interestingly enough in 2008 yeah out of the crisis the financial crisis of we were the first real estate firm founded basically coming out of the crisis and so we have had a view about conservatism and and and panic and all of those things but since our founding we are a mortgage lender we we make first mortgage loans around the country we are a major investor in mortgage securities and real estate securities in general commercial real estate securities in general and we own quite a bit of property around the country so we we do a lot of things we we're involved in most property types but not all property types we can get into that as well and and as I said we own a considerable amount of real estate in addition I serve on the board of a major New York major US bank and have a perspective from that Banco Santander and their US operations the big Spanish bank and have a big have a have a perspective on on the auto lending sector because of that and and generally on what a bank is also facing in this and this in this crisis as well well that's interesting you know we haven't even thought about cars recently because if you live in New York City there just aren't that many around for a change Andrew tell us briefly about an industry city it's an industrial campus but and it's you you you were brought on from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to basically rework the whole campus how is that going yeah thanks Eric it's great to be and I'm really honored to be on this panel with Allan and Kathy Alan and I were collaborators on the revitalization of Brooklyn Navy Yard for about a years and amongst the many things out and dies and Kathy has always been as that as a local South Brooklyn native one of one of our biggest supporters along the Brooklyn waterfront with revitalization so unlike the Navy Yard industry city is a hundred percent privately owned asset it's 16 buildings on 35 acres six million square feet of space right off the BQE and basically for 4050 years it fell apart like the Navy Yard had since World War two what was unique in 2013 was a new ownership group came along and hired me from the Navy Yard to try to bring it back to life only with private investment you know with with lenders who are willing to take the chance on seeing it come back to life really focused on on the innovation economy the broad range and making a physical a digital or an engineer product and you know we had some pretty tremendous success the last seven years we've gone from 150 businesses to 550 1,900 jobs to 7,000 that's about a hundred jobs a month for seven years mm-hmm but obviously things have stopped and we're very anxious about the future but one of the reasons I am glad to have full as dark as these days are and and as dark as that may be for a while is people like Kathy and Alan and all of us that played a role in the revitalization Brooklyn are are gonna step right up again yeah you know I should mention that all four of us are Brooklyn Heights I'm happy to say right Alan Alan Fishman is from Brooklyn Heights and Cathy wild who's just joining us I think you live in Bay Ridge am I correct correct I'm in Park Slope where are you Andrew parks level excellent so we got them outnumbered here from the slopers Cathy while the president and CEO of a partnership in New York City yeah they just tell us very briefly you know who's in the partnership for New York City and you know when I think of the partnership I think of big companies like you know I think Rupert Murdoch was your chairman right for a few years so you are really representing you know some of the fortune 500 companies and New York is known for but who else Wow and Fishman's also a member so it's a combination of global companies and entrepreneurial companies it's a mixture but the idea is to have the largest employers the globally focused companies when David Rockefeller started the partnership after the crisis the urban crisis in New York near bankruptcy of the 1970s the idea was that business should not be asleep at the switch when the city is going into a crisis that business should be caring about the interest of the city we're not a Chamber of Commerce we're an organization that is absolutely committed to the future of New York City which is obviously in jeopardy right now well it's a great segue because if there are any if that's your reason that show that you should be kicking into gear so the city's been shut down for seven weeks and we don't know exactly how long that's going to continue but a number of weeks more there's talk about ramping up now finally you know in the middle of this month perhaps but from your organization's perspective how serious is this and what is the path forward as your members see it well it's very serious I'd get rid of the cat listen no it's a very serious situation and I said the other day it reminds me more of the 1970s than of 9/11 or the Great Recession where we have the where we've lost so much so fast and if that happened us in us in the 70s in about five years we lost half our fortune 500 companies we lost a million people and we lost the value much of the value of the city and we had to we had to work 40 years to have that come back and what we want to make sure now is that we learn from that experience number one was real unity among the various sectors of the city from business labor we all work together so we're hoping that this time we'll get it right we'll have consensus around a plan what we have to do to come back and we'll be able to make the case to Washington to support us in that effort we're gonna get the government in a here at Allen I wondered if you got off your perspective on how this compares to the fiscal crisis of the 70s I mean what kind of trouble we are in that this well I think I think Kathy's right I think the the difference this time is that this is a completely random shot the companies that have been disadvantaged by this event are offset by companies that are advantage and and there's just no way of knowing what we know we know very little right now to be blunt I think we know a lot less than we don't we know a lot less than we think we know very early days what we know is so far from a from a real world perspective it seems to me is that the only winner here is technology what what you can report is that the cloud mm-hmm you know witnessed this event today that has worked and that people can conduct affairs business affairs and commercial affairs governmental affairs and so on through the cloud now what that means for real estate and for the city is is is very complex and if the fight between technology and work at home versus social distancing space in an office and what that all means I think is just way early days to figure that all out the other comment I'd make is unfortunately New York is in a much much different place than most of the rest of the country and most of the rest of the world where the place I'm sure you're gonna tell us right at the moment they say worse different in terms of but I don't even know that I think much worse we would then just just to give you a number we represent 30% of all the Kovach cases the coronavirus cases in the world in the New York metro area and we represent 50% of the deaths in the United States right and then there's also the matter of how the city functions and we kind of rely on a way of functioning that puts us more at risk and some other places you know Andrew I'm sure you've been working from home just like the rest of a hat must have but but your campus relies on people getting to the campus right and interacting at the campus so are you shut down I mean what's the circumstance there you're an industrial slash retail campus yeah yeah I'd say about 90 percent of our our companies they're the five hundred and fifty were not essential businesses right so so they they couldn't come in to work any more some number of them have been doing fine being able to work from home some number of them haven't been able to do anything and and are facing some tough times for those that have been able to be there it's it's pretty extraordinary and and you know just to again cast a positive light I mean obviously our first responders our heroes there are a lot of people supporting them and some of the manufacturers at the Navy Yard some of the ministry city just the immediate pivot to drop everything they're doing so gowns so mass dua shields now do food relief meals to first responders in the hospitals and and also now to food interest because we face a very serious issue but right right that it's gonna look very different as we start to think about coming back you know even though there will be a significantly larger number that have to work from home for a period of time I also think and and and the experience when packet industry city will be different for a period of time and so we have treatments and hopefully a vaccine in terms of keeping people apart but I but I also think that you know the the surf core of what industry city was about in terms of community and ecosystem people are dying to have that again and simple we're gonna have to manage that well as people come back yeah that's that's going to be a challenge and speaking of challenges you know Alan obviously the mortgage market is very important to to ladder your the company of you chair what's happening in the mortgage market how exposed are you and other people in your fields to non-payment attend and just give us the lay of the land if you well I think I think this falls into the category of what we don't know what we do know is that March payments well you know in March going into March the real estate mortgage delinquency world had never seen a better sort of cleaner record what we also know is that in April for many lenders ourselves included in the banks included and so on other than consumer loans basically loans loans have been paid on time largely consumer loans across the spectrum of loans mortgages auto loans credit cards and so on have had very very massive deferments forbearance agreements temporary relief and so on right what are the ramifications of that well I think it depends really on whether this is a timeout or whether it is a permanent or semi-permanent affliction if everybody gets back to work reasonably quickly around the country then it's a timeout and things will go back to certain normal and consumer land obviously the government Treasury and and the Federal Reserve have worked tirelessly on this I will tell you that my view they've been they've been very very well well-functioning but they see this as a huge problem and they throwing the kitchen sink at it and so so I think they will tell us more in terms of mortgage payments and June will tell us more yet but going into May we're holding our breath and we'll see they've been through that the capital markets have have calmed down quite a bit so the panic that existed has been has been addressed in many in most respects so you're not seeing margin calls your industry competitors not seen you're not hearing talks of margin calls and their collapse of the CMBS market like that's yeah we saw all of that we saw all that more right in late March and early April we're not seeing that now the Federal Reserve has done a pretty good job and and you know margin deposits are being returned to the to the borrowers and so on it's over it's not perfect by any means and the market is still very dislocated but the the sort of panic phase is behind us I think for the most part now we're into the oh my god what do we got to do now phase right you know what's really gonna happen and that's I think what nobody is as yet been able to focus on right and in terms of the government response I know obviously you know when we talk fiscal help we're talking federal because the state is broke the city's broke we're worse than broke actually you know we're in huge facing huge deficits now I wonder we could talk about you know the Kathy what you see as government responsibilities we can start briefly with with the federal you know as Alan mentioned obviously they've been huge efforts with the stimulus package or whatever you want to call it relief aid has has that been sufficient do we need to see more what do you remembers telling you about that Kathy Wilde well for the most part be our members are not involved with the stimulus package from the loan standpoint the PPP was it was directed at smaller businesses under 500 unfortunately under 500 employees unfortunately New York has not done well in the competition for those loans and we're seeing places like Utah on a per business per capita basis getting a lot more loans than New York so that's something we're concerned about and we're glad there's a second phase of that stimulus we hope we do better in the second phase it was the first come first serve program no it had nothing to do with geography or nothing to do with geography it technically had to do with need but clearly it wasn't to proportionate to what the what the problem was everybody all businesses have had a fall-off with revenues as a result of the kovin so because consumer spending is down 14 15 percent so that's that's not a surprise but the but New York still did not do well in the process part of the problem is that so many for example of our small businesses we've got 30,000 close to 30,000 restaurants than half a million employees for them the terms of the PPP program where you had to basically hire back all your employees and you're expected to be able to reopen the hon two and thirtieth by June 30th that's not going to happen in New York they'll be lucky to open by January 1st many of them that is and so so the programs that were not at the word put out quickly which we give a lot of credit for but we've got to make sure that in the next round of stimulus New York City and state the cities and states get some funding both to deal with their expenses and the significant deficits they're facing out of the out of this this crisis and also that that we have to figure out some other some other solutions to the small business problem and if your attendants gotten any of these PPP loans are they paying their rents how do you stand yeah I mean I
ould say you know while there obviously been some hiccups with the program if we didn't have that program things would be a lot worse and they're gonna be need to be additional rounds because you know it's Kathy pointed out you know we've I've spent a lot of my time personally working with the small businesses ranging from you know sole proprietors to companies with 50 75 employees just to connect them to their banks help them through the process nudge it along but if they're successful and a significant number of them are starting to be successful particularly on the second round as Kathy said you know that that will hopefully get them over the next couple of months but what happens after June 30th and you know it's it's particularly extreme with with restaurants but for a lot of these small businesses they may come back July 1st and and find out you know only 25% of their revenues are still viable so we are working closely with the tenants it's it's it's in our DNA it would be insane for a landlord not to write success is gonna be our success so you know if we can bridge them to the PPP Faline we see where they are bye-bye you know June 30 and hopefully there's going to be additional help we're hearing you know that a lot from landlords but a lot of people in government are saying we really can't trust landlords to do that therefore we are going to suspend rent payments or at least suspend evictions there's a bill in the state Senate now that would suspend evictions for non-payment of rent for six months after the state of emergency ends which basically takes us at least through the rest of the year and and I wondered and by the way there's also a bill in the City Council that said that says you could walk away from your commercial lease and you know and there's been unscathed I think on your point about and including the good news are I guess I guess and I made that point that today the governor reiterated his position that the stay on eviction was the way he was going to approach both the residential and commercial rent issue I think is long you know if it becomes politically acceptable just not to pay your rent and it's a political decision not a financial decision for a family that's really impacted by the crisis obviously we're all going to be hurt by that because that that loss of non-payment of rent by those who can will result in a whole domino effect in terms of throughout the financial system so we can't we can't really have that at the same time we've got to figure out solutions that will last beyond John and June 30th and I think that's what we're all thinking about now is how do we do that and how do we protect those people who really are in deep trouble do you get the sense that the legislature or the City Council for that matter understands how that would ripple through the financial system I mean you know there's there's a rail strike there's a rent strike that it took effect today you know AOC came out and said you know she didn't denounce a rent strike in fact she said there's a rent strike because people can't pay rent but actually the rent strike is about political withholding their rent in order to create political pressure correct again we have to come together as a city there's no guys there's no bad guys we've got to figure out how we as New Yorkers work together when we had prosperous times we could avoid we could afford these kind of political battles we can't now and I think that certainly the governor has led the way on that what he did yesterday you know we're beginning to see some some very strong statements yesterday the governor and the mayor came together and said we're going to shut down the subway from 1:00 in the morning till 5:00 in the morning and we're gonna disinfect it and we're we're going to make sure that it's a safe healthy place for people to get back to work that's kind of that and the the contact tracing that they announced with Mayor Bloomberg the testing and tracing those two factors are the single most important things to begin to restore a sense of security and confidence and I think that's going to make a real difference I mean it's a bill and what Kathy said I mean I think in some ways for last couple of decades we've enjoyed enormous success generally in New York but has not been shared by all I think there is a recognition now more than ever that there's an interconnectedness that planned all of us and you know our lenders aren't aren't giving us a holiday and indoors government saying you don't have to pay any taxes anymore so there's there's a connection between all of this with with rent and and I also honestly find like our companies they want to pay rent and and if and if they can't pay full rent this month they want to get to it next month I and so I just think and I and I hope there will be a a reprioritizing that says you know it's it's maybe we can afford some of these fights at at 3% unemployment when you're rapidly moving to double-digit employment unemployment there's got to be a refocusing and a reprioritizing on on what is going to preserve jobs and what's gonna create jobs yeah you know that's I want to get back to that because I know you're in the middle of a rezoning issue Alan what happen if I mean you're probably best position to tell us this like what would happen if there were a major fall-off in rent collection or for that matter if there were rent strikes that targeted specific landlords as specific portfolios I think I think you'd see foreclosures and I think you'd see all of the damage that occurs at a foreclosure which is to say economic destruction you'd see a series of owners that that would come in and and I would say randomly act and and you just can't you keep it just cats and it just doesn't work and and I think of that if that's what we have to face as Kathy said before that we don't have the luxury of doing that and we can't repeat that enough this has to be really thoughtful stuff and if you think about you know the hotel workers union or you think about you know not-for-profits and and and and cultural organizations you know they're those the challenges there are really deep and really complex and we've all got to figure this out calmly sort of eight politically and and and and well I think what are we had ninety percent unemployment among hotel workers I'm hearing I mean it's an you know unemployment or hakka Vincey rate at hotels in New York City is thirty three percent which is up from about twenty percent a couple weeks ago but that's a very deceiving number because most of the hotels are closed so the actually read doesn't even account for all of those that were closed if we would it is like that the total environment of hotels you know that existed that were open two months ago all right Kim you see he's probably like three percent there's just that whole industry is just stopped on a dime so the last time that unions and and and and and business developers corporate New York had alarming arms was was the fiscal crisis in the seventies and Kathy and Alan played a role there I was I was just riding the subways the little kid and looking at the looking at the graffiti on the wall but but it's gonna have to be the same thing this time it's it's it's the it's the hotel workers it's its 32bj the building work first look at what the transit workers have done during this I mean I talked about understanding inter connectivity of this of the city like we don't function without the subway and those unions have done an amazing job we we need to come together business and labor to figure this out now you were in the middle of a rezoning and Industry City as a billion dollar effort is that is that right and all you lips you know uniformly on your review procedure which is the public review process that all rezoning is go through have been frozen they've been suspended by the mayor because they involve public meetings and you can't do public meetings in less than virtual now so I was wondering where that leaves you was that a you it was a fight so does that help or heard but does that give you more time maybe cool heads prevail maybe that's a new perspective on what you're proposing or just this really set you back in terms of timing well look we're waiting on on City planning to restart the clock we'd probably have two or three months left once that clock restarts you know I would say things changed dramatically since we introduced this plan five years ago you know retail is very different than it was before last mile and and things like that have exploded warehouse distribution is gonna be more important than ever so there are some things of value in the rezoning and and first and foremost I would say and I think this is a real model that we really saw it at the Navy Yard and are trying to replicate an industry City which is embedding colleges and universities particularly CUNY and rapidly growing commercial centers and creating pathways for jobs for the future that's the kind of development and equity that I think we need to look at in the future so again I can't look in the crystal ball and say well people's minds have changed once we restart but I certainly hope that that we prioritize of what's important and the opportunity to take us from you know seven eight thousand jobs today to twenty thousand jobs will become a lot more apparent in terms of the need than it was maybe three or four months you know it's funny because I mean all of us remember the days when we were just desperate for jobs and everything was about a job creation you know stop the loss of jobs you know at first stop it and then create new jobs and then we moved into the point where we had such great job creation year after year that suddenly jobs became a bad thing for many people for them jobs meant people would come in and outbid them for their housing drive up the cost of housing push people out gentrified neighborhoods extend homelessness you know and so somehow jobs became a bad thing and and that was like the fight that so it was kind of in a microcosm of that right because you were saying we're gonna create these jobs and there were some local opponents in Sunset Park saying but those are not the kind of jobs we want so maybe you could Kathie maybe you could offer some perspective on whether you think you know that whole dynamic is going to change and that debate about you know development and whether it's bad you know whether that will change now that you know so many New Yorkers are not working at all now we have 1.6 million employee New Yorkers applying for unemployment insurance right now trying to and that's probably a small there's probably many more that can't get through the phone lines yet so that certainly the job issue is going to come back and we're going to have to another different way the there are a number of challenges the affordability the housing affordability challenge has been with us for a number of years are we going to now try and figure out how to fix it because we've got a situation where we have people who are less able to to afford than they were before how are we going to use this you know is there a silver lining and all this that we can figure out some more creative solutions to some of these chronic problems as the new witness obviously the the racial disparity in terms of the impact of the coronavirus on the Hispanic and black communities is something that it gives everybody a pause about what we've got to do with our healthcare system and in terms of making sure that this is not repeated and that it has made more equitable so there's there's a bunch of harsh realities we're having to face right now at the same time having you know the need to figure out how to reopen and get going there's bigger issues so this is something where it's going to take everybody from the universities to business to labor to the community organizations everybody is gonna have to take a new attitude a more open attitude on this and and try and figure out how to solve the problem yeah and do you have any expectation or either of you any of you that that will actually happen though or will we just quickly revert yeah it has to happen we have to figure to make it happen it's it has to happen and you know growth in New York City had already slowed you know there were some numbers that showed it decreasing even before this like New York 16 when it grows you can't be progressive without progress and we've got to get back to that and it's that there is an irony here and that will be attention in addition to the sort of normal resistance to density there's there's the issue of kovat and density right but we have to figure out particularly in the outer boroughs how we create more density around job hubs whether it's the Navy art or industry City Long Island City with South Bronx and and part of that as Kathy said has to be an aggressive affordable housing plan unlike anything we've seen to deal with some of the issues around around equity and expense and you know the mayor thought he had an aggressive affordable housing plan but now he's just cutting billions of dollars from him because he doesn't have any funding at the moment and he says like we'll make up for it you know in the years 2023 2024 by the way when he'll be out of office so Alan how do you see this you know when I look at it zoning maps of New York City and I'm sure you don't spend a lot of time looking at Sony massive New York City and neither do i but when you do you see quite a bit of it is low-density zoning I mean you know I tremendous opportunities out there to change the way this yes I think there are I think the the again not not to be dead to negative when you when you sort of squint and think about close your eyes and think about what is a Main Street in an outer borough gonna look like or what is the Main Street in in in in Harlem or East Village ER and and it's hard for me to see the model yet and and I'm not very creative so it's so I I'm guilty but we've got to come up with a model of retail that that is real not theoretical and and in the new world at medicine and what you know what what is a medicine delivery system going to look like on the Main Street so all these questions have got to come together and that's where universities and other thinkers of gotta come and become part of this and leaders in this and yes it'll all come together but it will have to be very different than what we've got today because you're just not getting story after story after story opening up yeah in fact they're all closing or it seems that way anyway except for the ones that are selling food I mean people are even getting used to ordering food online so my question to the panel is are the changes that we're seeing now through the stay at home era how much are those going to last and potentially hurt in New York so there's a very interesting example Airbnb did did a project basically providing housing for first responders around the country and and they have well over a quarter of a million posts that have opened their houses or for money and are allowing first responders to come into their homes for housing right so there's a regular guest at the moment they have no regular guests at the moment not sure but but they'll think about think about the decision of what that means and it says something about a the human spirit but it also says something that that people will back to normal quote unquote normal perhaps more quickly than we think that's what's keeping me excited because I'm hoping that between the medicine and the vaccines and and younger people and and and less threatened populations you will get back to a more normal existence in a in a rationally time I'm reasonable way what Kathy what do you see happening with the with the office market I mean all of your members have big offices in New York City how are they talking about getting those offices restarted is there going to be a shift in the way they deploy people there is it starts with employees about a third of the employees in the city are people that can work from home so we're not talking about the majority of the population but we're talking about the professional workers many of the big industries the financial industry etc yes and they have adjusted to wor
ing from home and there's a there is a a real split between employees because employers are surveying opinion surveying their their workers and they say it's pretty it's very much what happened half between whether people are comfortable and want to stay working at home or whether they're eager to get back in the office and then we're gonna have to make a sales pitch for the city that we're safe that they'll be healthy that the protections are in place and employers are going to have to make a pitch that they've got the proper regimen the proper cleaning within the offices that they figured out what to do about not having too many people in an elevator and they're gonna so it's on both sides that's going to take a lot of effort and it's going to be a campaign so I would not expect office workers for the most part to be back before September and when they are they're gonna need them the real-estate industry will industry will be working with them they're gonna need more square footage they're going to need different layouts they're going to need different partitions all of a sudden the open office is not as popular as it had become over the last deck so they're going to be a lot of design changes in office space a different protocol but actually I've been looking at protocols from around the country and I got one from Houston where the business community was actually recommending among other things social distancing etc whistleblowers now who ever thought they'd hear of that but didn't work out too well for de Blasio good but it's to restore confidence among their employees that they'll be protected when they come back and that the regiment is going to be safe for them mm-hmm but think about the the economic cycle of that you need you have fewer people and more and more space and and and the the financial burden of that has got to get worked through a lot of a lot of complicated decisions yeah the key is there that that not read whether that results in people taking more in companies taking more space in New York or looking for a cheaper location and moving half the jobs out that's before leaving half the jobs at home and that's a real challenge because most firms I've talked to in terms of the industry's media finance texts are finding they're very much have not lost their productivity once people adjusted to the remote work place the tools are such like we aren't right now that they're they've been able to function even trading floors listening and basically 90 percent productivity I have a question from from one of our viewers jack Rosenfield and he asks whether social distancing acceleration of the work from home trend will actually drive people from the city to the suburbs which is something that was happening back in the days when we had high crime and the schools had a bad worst reputation we saw that suburban flight are we gonna see that now I'm not sure it's gonna be a suburban flight as much as I think it's going to be a redistribution around the country I I don't I don't think it goes to the suburbs but I think that it could well go to other cities okay what about pandemic insurance and how landlords are going to write leases in the future because tenants are going to be looking for protections and somewhere landlords for that matter for something like this happening again or maybe the same thing recurring because we're probably going to see some resurgence 'as you know throughout this that goes back to your question about the federal government because after 9/11 we couldn't get you know office buildings where can we calm ponine insurance now if the federal government put in a program called terrorist terrorism risk insurance where they provided for a protection of the industry protection layer from the federal government you're going to need the same thing now I would say that there is no there's no misunderstanding of the seriousness of this at the at the Federal Reserve in the Treasury this is known to be for what it is this is a deep deep threat to the US economy and I think it is well understood at the highest levels so I think you'll see a lot of reaction I think this is just very very comprehensive and complex stuff and that's a bipartisan recognition it's not yeah and and you know I refer you to J Powell's speech yesterday he didn't he didn't make that speech because he's he's sanguine that's for sure right well are any of you at this point I mean take off your political hats for the moment like I think you really be optimistic when we don't really know if we can put a thousand two thousand people on a subway train or we have 27,000 restaurants we don't know if when people are going to be able to dine you know if it's a year and a half until there's a vaccine I mean they can't dine with a mask on so how would that how is that going to work in New York City I think your point is right I thought that we've got I think we have confidence in our health medical research life science system they're gonna find a vaccine they're gonna find cure they're gonna deal with that part of it the hardest part of this is going to be the psychology of bringing people back the whole social mix thing getting people on the trains in a crowded environment that's going to be tough and that's the culture of New York that's what makes New York's magic we don't we can't lose that social interaction piece so it's going to be a matter of one getting the real solutions in terms of the Health Medical vaccines curious etc and then number two restoring confidence and figuring out how we can do that in a way that makes people feel they can be back in a social setting with comfort whether it's in the workplace or in the theater or wherever and you have some outdoor space there too right so you used to do a lot of outdoor events you know maybe those come back sooner then people walk into your stores but have you thought about you know how industry City reopens well look it's it's a it hopefully is somewhat of an advantage that you know you can access it more easily from the surrounding communities I think we think they're gonna be a lot more bikers a lot more walkers coming to work I think that's a good thing generally in the outer boroughs you know the huge floor plates I think play well towards towards separating people I think it's a real value proposition so the wide staircases in terms of people going up and down as opposed to wanting to get in crowded elevators but you know in the outdoor space will be a benefit you know we're gonna initially have to remove a lot of the tables and chairs they already have been and probably keep them removed for a period of time to keep people apart but people are gonna want the green space in the outdoor space that we have in between our buildings so you know again as Cathy said I I hope this is a a short period of time until we have treatments and are heading towards affecting or have a vaccine then there's the confidence level just of flooding the subways again but I think it's gonna come back because I really think people are gonna want to be connected to each other again all of the good feelings that we felt banging pots and pans at seven o'clock like the federal government has been stepping up in some ways it's gotta be more like I think all of that will lead towards New York City thriving again it's just a question of how long is that period of time let me ask you one more question because we only have two minutes left and I want to get back to these budget deficits because they are unpressed unprecedented really we haven't seen these and even in the Great Recession we didn't see deficits of this size and it doesn't look like the federal government is going to be sending the state or the city any money just to like fill those gaps so do I mean Alan do you see do you think the city could end up in receivership or some kind of bankruptcy situation or you know you you can't borrow enough money you can't borrow really you have to balance your budget so are we just gonna cut our way out of this I don't I don't think that's gonna be a cutting only I think that the capital markets and the municipal markets will have a lot of tolerance for a lot of capacity and they will they will work with the cities around the country particularly a city like New York so I think that New York has a lot of room to to borrow its and state more so even there's a lot of room to maneuver here but I think that it has to be done you know with reference to cutting on programs and so on that's over it's got to be done altogether and it's got to be done as Kathleen said at the beginning so you talked about going to we're going to the bond market just probably the bond market would be very open to a lot of a lot of a lot of capacity Eric I disagree I believe the federal government is gonna come in for the states in the cities they they've made that pretty clear and I think the biggest problem there Kathy in my view is that this problem is deeper and more pervasive in New York City particularly for the New Jersey that's really it's really very different when you leave New York City or the Northeast or whatever you want however you want to characterize it yeah it is very different well we know what happens in these situations you know all the other states say well you're sending all this money to New York or California you know what about us and everyone demands an equal share of the pie the leader of the Senate's in New Yorker and he knows how to maneuver pretty good platform on this issue I mean the number of people who are watching him across the country I don't think you can minimize that his ability to explain what what the regional economy New York City economy our state economy what the regional economy does for the rest of the country I think has been very powerful yeah I think that's a good point you know the New York metro area is 10 percent of the national economy so when you take that out yeah that's that's a huge blow so and the governor's made the point of course in regular years we give tens of billions of dollars more to Washington than we get back so it's only right that every so often you know we get something I want to thank all of our guests at Allen Fishman from latter Capitol Andrew Kimball from industry city and Kathy while from the partnership for New York City a reminder to all of our viewers please go to the real deal com to subscribe and on the topic of rent strikes and canceling rent come back on Monday at five o'clock we're going to have state senator Julia Salazar and a representative from the real estate industry talking about how you know debating if you will how that is going to play out so please come back five o'clock thank you everyone else for watching and tune in next time
