Crain's New York Business

ASKED & ANSWERED Lab chief on when it will be safe to return to work PAGE 6

CRAINSNEWYORK.COM

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APRIL 13, 2020

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ROARING AHEAD Developers secure $40 million loan for Lionsgate studio in Yonkers PAGE 13

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

COVID-19 DEALS A LONG-TERM HIT TO TRANSIT Agency struggles to pay for $54 billion in capital improvements

BY BRIAN PASCUS

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MORE INSIDE

COMING TOGETHER Cultural institutions unite against Covid-19 PAGE 2

ntil January, it was full speed ahead for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s four-year capital improvement plan.

The $54 billion proposal was going to pay out $7.1 billion for modernized signals, $2.6 billion for track replacement and $4.1 billion for station improvements. In

LIGHTS TO STAY DIM Broadway’s April reopening has been pushed back to June.

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See TRANSIT on page 14

SOME PIVOT, OTHERS SUFFER Update: Crain’s latest on six executives navigating the pandemic PAGE 3

MEAL TIME Restaurateur survives by feeding hospital workers PAGE 4

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HELP WANTED Hospitals say insurers need to step up with financial assistance PAGE 11

NEWSPAPER

VOL. 36, NO. 13

© 2020 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC.

OUT OF OFFICE

RESTAURANTS OPEN FOR TAKEOUT AND DELIVERY PAGE 19

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PAYCHECK PROTECTION A primer on how new SBA loan program works PAGE 12

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Restaurants fear federal rescue loans are out of reach

NOMINATIONS

Terms for the federal small business aid package may be too restrictive for eateries

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he city’s restaurants— among the businesses hardest hit by the Covid-19 crisis—risk being left behind by the federal government’s rescue package, industry officials warn.

The NYC Hospitality Alliance, the lobbying group for restaurants and nightlife, has been raising the alarm that hiring requirements attached to the $350 billion Payroll Protection Program could push businesses away.

The low-interest loans are meant to cover two and a half months of payroll, rent and other expenses for employers with fewer than 500 employees. If businesses have the same headcount by June 30 as they did before the pandemic, the loan converts to a grant and need not be paid back. But the forgiven portion of the loan will be reduced if busi-

nesses don’t reach their previous staffing levels.

“We are in the middle of a pandemic, and we don't know when restaurants will be back,” said Andrew Rigie, the alliance’s executive director. "Even then, we don't know what customer behavior is going to be.”

Reservations City restaurateurs say it is nearly impossible to know how many employees they will need in June. They don't even know if they will be fully opened by then.

“Just before we were shut down, we were told to operate at 50% capacity,” said Erin Bellard, co-owner of E's Bar on the Upper West Side.

“I have a hard time believing we don't reopen under similar restrictions. If we are at 50% capacity, it is hard to have shifts for 100% staff.”

Bellard, who closed the bar and let 14 employees go last month,

started the application for the loan with help from the Columbia-Harlem Small Business Development Center. She said the bar's staff is small enough that, with the loan, she should be able to hire everyone back.

“But if I were at a larger restaurant, I would be concerned,” Bellard said. “If you have 50 employees and you are operating at half-capacity, it is much more tricky.”

At Lido, an Italian restaurant in Harlem, owner Susannah Koteen laid off 40 employees and closed last month. She is working with JPMorgan Chase for the loan but fears the terms could work against the business. She doesn't know how fast customers will return and how much they will be willing to spend.

Columbia University students and families are important customers, but the business will miss out on the busy graduation season.

“We are not going to open up to

100% of our old sales,” Koteen said.

“I’d love to hire everybody back as soon as possible. But to say the loan won’t be forgiven if you don’t get people back by June is unrealistic for the industry.”

The alliance said the federal government should adjust the terms to allow the loans to be forgivable up to six months after restaurants and other businesses reopen. That would mean more time to get back staff.

The industry, particularly in New York, also would like to see new rules allowing more of the loan to be put toward rent. Federal guidance on the loans indicates that only 25% of money can go to nonpayroll costs and still be forgiven.

Rigie said the terms could be amended through additional guidance on the PPP or through the next round of rescue legislation, which is in the works in Washington. ■

ISTOCK

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

SUBMISSIONS DUE FRIDAY FOR NOTABLE LGBTQ LEADERS AND EXECUTIVES Crain’s is seeking notable LGBTQ leaders and executives in New York to include in an article that will honor those making an impact in the local business community.

Submit nominations by April 17.

CrainsNewYork.com/NotableLGBTQ

City’s art world sketches out its future Lincoln Center, MoMa and other cultural institutions work together to figure out what’s next

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ew York's art world convenes at 3 p.m. each day to assess the wreckage of Covid-19.

It started with a standing monthly conference call of the 34 members of the Cultural Institutions Group— arts groups that operate out of cityowned buildings.

That call became daily as the Covid-19 crisis worsened. Then theaters, events centers and museums not in the group filtered in. Now, 150 institutions are present for the daily call.

The call, dubbed Culture@3, includes some of the most recognizable art institutions across the city—the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum are all on the line. So is Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City Center and Carnegie Hall.

Kathy Hughes, acting commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the city comptroller's office also take part.

It's where the city's art institutions, both large and small, assess the cost of the Covid-19 crisis. New York’s art world makes up $110 billion in economic activity or one of

every eight dollars in the city’s economy, according to an October 2019 report from Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Covid-19 has upended the art world’s finances.

Money from ticket sales, space rental, concessions and merchandise, and spring galas—all key sources of revenue for nonprofit arts groups—have evaporated, said Taryn Sacramone, who launched Culture@3 calls while she was the acting chair of the Cultural Institutions Group.

BUCK ENNIS

BY GWEN EVERETT

Empty canvas The outbreak landed right in the middle of Queens Botanical Garden's peak season, Executive Director Susan Lacerte said. It is carrying on with its spring gala—in cyberspace—without the smell of fresh-cut grass or blossoms.

"It's going to be virtual, but we won't have people present," Lacerte said. "It's probably a loss of $100,000 right there."

Like businesses hit hard by the pandemic, some art institutions are not expected to survive.

“This is devastating. I mean there are a lot of cultural institutions that may not reopen because this is such an instant and direct financial hit,” said Sacramone, who leads the

Queens Theatre. Many nonprofits have limited funding to begin with, she said, which is “part of how we got here so quickly.”

Even institutions with larger endowments cannot draw on those funds easily, she said, because they have restrictions on how they can be spent.

“What we do have is each other to talk through: In the absence of perfect information, how are you going about your decision-making?” Sacramone said.

Solutions shared on the call have included asking funders to allow grants made for specific programs

to go toward general operating expenses. Some who have had to refund tickets have asked people to convert their tickets to donations.

There’s also talk of how to access emergency grants raised specifically in the wake of Covid-19.

In partnership with philanthropic foundations, the New York Community Trust launched a $75 million fund in March, part of which will be used for cultural organizations throughout the city. The trust has not yet announced its grantees, but there's been "tremendous interest—proposals are coming in at all hours of the day and night," said

Kerry McCarthy, vice president of philanthropic initiatives at the trust.

Nonprofits also can apply for federal Small Business Administration loans. That’s a result of collective lobbying from major arts groups at the federal level, said Laurie Baskin, director of research, policy and collective action at Theatre Communications Group.

“What our coalition had to do is convince our legislators” that nonprofit arts groups are small businesses, said Teresa Eyring, TCG's executive director. “This Covid-19 crisis has had a very, very difficult and extreme impact on theaters because we are conveners of people and artists in rooms together.”

That legislative win, Baskin said, was the result of unified action across arts advocacy groups, such as the Performing Arts Alliance and the Cultural Advocacy Group, on Capitol Hill.

Still, there are more questions than answers. Many nonprofits’ revenue streams rely on funds from a donor class that may not be able to make the same kind of donations after the crisis, Sacramone said.

“A lot of our corporate and business supporters are suffering as well,” Sacramone said. ■

Vol. 36, No. 13, March 13, 2020—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for bimonthly in January, July and August and the last issue in December, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017.

Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, PO Box 433279, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9681. For subscriber service: call 877-824-9379; fax 313-446-6777. $3.00 a copy; $129.00 per year. (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) ©Entire contents copyright 2020 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.

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BUCK ENNIS

FRESHDIRECT’S McInerney has seen a surge in orders.

SOME PIVOT, OTHERS SUFFER IN EVER-CHANGING MARKETS Crain’s catalogs the ups and downs of six executives trying to keep operations going during the pandemic

BY CARA EISENPRESS AND GREG DAVID

T

he Brooklyn Navy Yard is now Mayor Bill de Blasio’s go-to backdrop for showcasing how the city is stepping up in its struggle to address the Covid-19 epidemic.

The 92nd Street Y is successfully transferring its programing online, but it has been forced to institute pay cuts. A pharmacy once inundated with orders finds itself lacking business as customers flee Manhattan. A food company

accustomed to wholesale sales wonders how much to retool itself for its current retail customers.

A restaurant that pivoted to delivery and takeout decides to shutter for the safety of its staff. Business is booming at FreshDirect, but the online grocer seems unable to meet demand.

This is the second Crain’s survey of how a group of See PIVOT on page 15

Broadway extends shutdown to June Live entertainment and public events probably slow to return

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he lights will stay out on Broadway through at least June 7, though it will likely be even longer before the shows return to New York.

The Broadway League said last week that it would extend the suspension of shows. Theaters first closed March 12 with the hope of them returning by April 13.

As Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week extended the stayhome order through the end of April, eliminating any hope for Broadway’s already optimistic return date.

Closing act Even beyond the order, state officials likely will bring back live entertainment and other public

events much more slowly than other parts of the city economy.

Last month China reopened and then quickly closed its movie theaters out of fear that the setting could cause a new flare-up of coronavirus cases.

People with tickets to shows before June 7 will receive an email with information on refunds and exchanges, the Broadway League said. ■

BUCK ENNIS

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

APRIL 13, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Restaurateur survives by feeding hospital workers Owner raised $750,000, served up more than 25,000 meals and hired back 33 employees

BY DIANE HESS

How businesses are adapting to the coronavirus crisis Frontlines NYC. To date, the organization has served more than 25,000 meals at 26 hospitals.

Di Pietro’s daughter, Isabella, a senior at Harvard, built a website in 18 hours with the help of a friend.

The organization attracted more than $12,000 in its first eight hours, and since then it has raised more than $750,000 from more than 5,000 donors.

The Paul Singer Foundation has pledged an additional $150,000 and is bringing new restaurants into the fold through the Jewish Food Society. They include Russ & Daughters, Katz’s Deli and Breads Bakery.

“The meals are a huge morale boost,” said Stephen Stark, the nurse manager of the ER at NYU Langone in Brooklyn.

“They show the community cares about us.”

Di Pietro’s son, Ian, a freshman at Williams College, helps track incoming hospital orders. The demand has surged to more than 5,000 meals per day and exceeds available funds. Kate is responsible for media outreach.

Each meal costs $25; the money goes toward food, delivery, sales tax, and the restaurant’s wages and

“THE ER EMPLOYEES MET US AT THE CURB AND WERE VERY THANKFUL” A day later, as word spread, the emergency room at NYU Langone in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, requested 50 meals. It was then that Di Pietro sensed an opportunity to serve brave coronavirus responders and keep his business alive. With his wife, Kate, and their two college-age children, he founded Feed the

MEAL TIME Luca Di Pietro drops off dinners at NYU Langone Medical Center.

rent. The effort has enabled Tarallucci e Vino to rehire 33 employees after being forced to lay off 95 of its 102-member staff.

Di Pietro recently reopened the kitchen at his 18th Street location.

Through partnerships with Brooklyn restaurants Mesa Coyoacan and Zonarosa, he has expanded his reach.

The native Italian debuted the first Tarallucci e Vino restaurant six weeks before 9/11. He remembers New Yorkers congregating at his

East Village location after the terrorist attacks.

On the brink “They hugged and talked about their fears,” he said. “Now we can’t come together physically, so we are doing it virtually.”

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, brick-and-mortar businesses were on the brink. Looking ahead, Di Pietro is skeptical of the Small Business Administration’s loan program. So far he's been un-

COURTSEY OF DI PIETRO

W

ith his restaurants effectively shuttered, Luca Di Pietro, owner of Tarallucci e Vino in Manhattan, turned his focus to feeding hospital workers on the front lines of the Covid-19 fight.

After he was forced to close four of his five Italian eateries in March, Di Pietro received a Facebook message from a Toronto friend, Adair Roberts, asking if she could buy meals from Tarallucci e Vino for New York hospital workers.

Inspired by Roberts’ generosity, the next night Di Pietro brought 40 dinners to NYU Langone Medical Center on First Avenue from his Upper West Side location, which was still open for takeout and delivery.

“The ER employees met us at the curb and were very thankful,” Di Pietro said. “They don’t have time to get out of their protective gear and find healthy food.”

able to enroll.

But with the help of Feed the Frontlines, Di Pietro expects Tarallucci e Vino will recover. “Because of this initiative, I will be all right,” he said. “I consider myself lucky.” ■ Do you know of other businesses that have pivoted during the coronavirus pandemic to keep their employees working? We'd like to hear about them. Email Crain's New York Business Editor Robert Hordt at robert.hordt@crainsnewyork.com.

Google pitches in to reboot overwhelmed state unemployment system Tech titan logs on to help New York reduce the weeks-old claims

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ew York’s unemployment system went temporarily dark for a reboot, the governor's office said last week, in the hope that Google could fix a weeks-old problem with processing a deep backlog of jobless claims.

“The system just crashed because of the volume,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

Restructuring The state has partnered with the tech giant to restructure its unemployment apparatus, said Melissa DeRosa, a top aide to the governor.

Cuomo reassured New Yorkers they will still get paid for the weeks they were not previously allowed to claim because of the system's malfunction.

After the reboot, which took place from 5 to 7 p.m. last Thursday, a new, streamlined application launched that eliminates the need to call the Department of Labor, DeRosa said.

The state’s unemployment system has been beset with problems from dealing with what the governor said was a hundredfold increase in the need for unemployment benefits as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.

“You have millions out of work.

The next shoe to drop is going to be millions of people calling for unemployment benefits, crashing the system,” Cuomo said.

Working on it A thousand people are processing applications for benefits, the governor said.

New York has seen 810,000 claims since March 9, DeRosa

said, 600,000 of which have been processed.

But those numbers almost certainly do not reflect the reality of unemployment in New York.

Busy phone lines The state has seen mass layoffs as Covid-19 ravages the economy, and New Yorkers seeking unemployment benefits have complained for weeks about busy phone lines at the Department of Labor that block them from filing.

The new system will do away with a call-in option, DeRosa said.

Instead, labor department employees will call individuals within 72 hours of claims being filed, she said.

“So hopefully, the system will be much better streamlined, but as the governor said, it’s a volume issue that we’ve never experienced,” DeRosa said. ■

NEW YORK couldn’t handle the number of applications.

AP PHOTO

BY GWEN EVERETT

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Small-biz owners try navigating federal relief The Paycheck Protection Program makes up to $10 million available, with a 1% interest rate

BY BRIAN PASCUS

S

mall-business leaders in the federal government and across the nation dug into the details of the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program last week during a conversation that gave clarity to its loan requirements but led some to criticize its rollout.

Crain’s webcast “What the Bailout Means for Small-Business Owners” was hosted by Christine Dare-Bryan, assistant managing editor for special projects. It featured five leaders from across the industry who did not entirely agree on the success of the massive federal program’s implementation.

“It’s the single-largest smallbusiness loan program in history,” Steve Bulger, regional administrator for the Small Business Administration, said of the PPP. “It is receiving an overwhelming response so far. We know there are tens of thousands of businesses applying for these loans every hour.”

“Our resource partners want to help small business navigate this process,” said Constance Logan,

district director of the SBA in Detroit.

While praising the program’s intent, leaders in New York’s small-business community took aim at its execution.

“I would say the rollout has been uneven at best,” said Randy Peers, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “There’s a lot of confusion, particularly from the banks and lenders themselves.”

Marc Wieder, a partner in Anchin’s Real Estate Group, said his clients were finding that “different lenders require different documentation.”

The Paycheck Protection Program makes up to $10 million available to small-businesses owners, although most won’t require that amount because the loan is calculated based on total monthly payroll. Businesses between one and 500 employees, independent contractors and sole proprietorships are eligible for it. SBA officials stressed no entity needs to

provide the standard documentation the administration’s traditional 7(a) small-business loan program requires. The loan carries a 1% interest rate, but it can be forgiven if the money goes toward payroll expenses, health care, rent, mortgage costs and utilities.

“Technically it’s a loan through our 7(a) program. However, it’s a completely forgivable loan,” Bulger said. “It’s really unique, and we’ve never done anything like this.”

With such a novel concept—and on such a massive financial scale— the parties agreed not everything would be perfect in the early stages of the rollout.

Bulger and Logan acknowledged that some rules—such as the $100,000 payroll cap—are interim measures. The SBA, they said, is awaiting guidance from the Treasury Department and Congress on how certain terms apply to individual cases. They said it remains unclear if property owners are eligible, even though landlords are overseeing commercial and residential tenants who are eligible.

“The landlords are not going to have the cash flow and be able to pay the real estate taxes come July 1,” said Wieder, noting that small landlords are not considered small-business owners under the guidelines of the PPP. Some panelists shared their frustration that many mom-andpop business owners reportedly have been turned away from banks and local lenders, even though they qualify for the loan under the SBA's general guidelines.

Some banks have been hesitant to make loans to new customers

without verifying their background and credit history more thoroughly.

Peers said he has found that some banks in Brooklyn have gravitated toward lending to existing customers because they already have met underwriting standards.

On this point the SBA officials taking part in the webinar conceded that their control is limited.

“It’s a voluntary program,” Bulger said. “The banks can choose if they want to partake or not. It’s up to them to decide who they want to offer the loans to.”

Bugler said the SBA is only requiring banks and lenders to verify payroll and benefits. Any additional information is dependent on a particular lender and its underwriting standards.

To navigate the differing requirements, some panelists recommended small-business owners keep records of the names of their affiliated companies, lists of co-owners, copies of income tax returns and documentation of health care benefits, among other financial statements. ■

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ASKED & ANSWERED

INTERVIEW BY JONATHAN LAMANTIA

WHO HE IS Executive chairman, BioReference Laboratories; senior vice president, OPKO Health (BioReference’s parent company)

D

r. Jon Cohen helms BioReference Laboratories, one of the primary firms testing patients for Covid-19 in New York. He was formerly a senior executive at Quest Diagnostics and a chief medical officer at what is now Northwell Health. His experience as chief policy adviser to Gov. David Paterson led Cohen to help BioReference play an instrumental role in local efforts to ramp up testing. The company partnered with the state to coordinate its New Rochelle drive-through site and expand testing at NYC Health and Hospitals. The state completed only 5,400 Covid-19 tests in the first two weeks of March. New York now routinely tests almost four times that many a day.

How many tests does your firm run daily in the U.S.?

We’re doing approximately 20,000 Covid tests a day nationwide. We have run over 200,000 tests, which is about 15% of all the Covid tests in the country to date.

How quickly are you able to get a result?

We’re turning around most of the results within 48 hours.

Early on I made the decision that we would prioritize patients in hospitals, especially critically ill patients.

We’re trying to keep those under 24 hours and in some cases under 12 hours. We’re generally running two to three days for the rest.

HEADQUARTERS Elmwood Park, N.J. AGE 65 2019 REVENUE $716.8 million EMPLOYEES Nearly 4,000 RESIDES Great Neck, Long Island GREW UP Rosedale, Queens EDUCATION Bachelor’s in chemistry, University of Miami; M.D., University of Miami School of Medicine FAMILY AFFAIR Cohen’s wife, daughter and son-in-law are all surgeons.

CRISIS EXPERIENCE He led Long Island Jewish Medical Center’s crisis response during 9/11 and the 2003 blackout, when the hospital lost power and needed to manually ventilate patients.

MOTIVATION “When I’m thinking about the company, I’m thinking about whether [a decision] makes sense to the people who are on the front line.”

If there are no drugs proven to treat Covid-19, why is testing still important?

First, there are now specific treatments. There are multiple trials going on. Plus, the

respiratory therapy is very different for a Covid patient than it is for a normal patient on a ventilator. When you have a Covid patient, you want to put them in a unit with less person-to-person contact. If you’re in an ICU and you’re not Covid, how they take care of you is very different than if you’re in a Covid unit.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said one of the keys to returning the state to normalcy is rapid testing on a wide scale. What needs to happen for that to be possible?

We are in discussions with the federal government about what that could look like. Serology testing tells you essentially whether you’re immune or not. We’ve already had those discussions with multiple vendors.

How will serology testing help?

It’ll help get people back to work, and it’ll get people confident again that they can go outside or at least to a place of work where they know that hopefully everybody’s got immunity. The impact of that kind of testing would be enormous. If you’ve had this disease, you become immune. It’s the same thing as getting a vaccine. Serology testing measures your level of immunity.

When will companies send employees back to their jobs?

A lot of major employers are waiting around for this test because it means they can test their workers, and those people could go back to work. You can imagine a scenario where if people have immunity, they’ll be able to go back to work. The question is going to be people who haven’t had the disease who are fine but don’t have the immunity. I don’t know if people are going to wait for the vaccine or if there’s another way around it. ■

BIOREFERENCE LABORATORIES

JON R. COHEN BioReference Laboratories

DOSSIER

6 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | APRIL 13, 2020

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IN THE MARKETS

Fairway’s Harlem store is set to close The iconic supermarket chain will survive bankruptcy, but key locations will not

S

BUCK ENNIS

urprisingly, Fairway Market’s was such a beloved grocer that store in Harlem is set to close Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. unless a last-minute bidder Charles Schumer and Miss America attended the Red Hook store’s emerges for the location.

Fairway agreed to sell the popu- reopening ceremony after Superlar uptown grocery store along with storm Sandy. But the company, four other Manhattan locations to whose roots go back to 1933, strugVillage Super Market for $70 mil- gled as Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s lion when Fairway filed for bank- and Fresh Direct planted their flags here. A private-equity ruptcy protection in Janfirm with no experience in uary. But Village has groceries bought out the changed its mind and founding family in 2007. elected to buy the parking Three months ago Fairway lot surrounding the Harfiled for bankruptcy prolem location but not the tection for the second store itself, according to time in four years. federal court documents.

Last month Fairway A Village official did not agreed to sell the leases reply to requests for comfor stores in Woodland ment.

AARON ELSTEIN Park and Paramus, N.J., to Time also seems to be Amazon for $1.5 million. running out for the Fairway location in Red Hook. Nobody They are to be renovated and, a perhas stepped forward with an offer son familiar with the matter said, to buy the store, according to court rebranded as Whole Foods stores.

Fairway’s store in Georgetown, documents.

Brooklyn, is to be acquired for $5 Fresh picked million and become a Key Food loThe fate of Fairway will be deter- cation.

Village Super Market, which opmined April 14 at a federal bankruptcy court hearing. An attorney erates under the Gourmet Garage for the 13-store chain did not re- and ShopRite banners, last month revised its agreement to buy five spond to a request for comment.

At its peak not long ago, Fairway Fairway stores and keep the name.

The stores it will take are the Upper West Side flagship and Fairway outposts on the Upper East Side, in Chelsea and in Kips Bay. It is also set to acquire Fairway’s production center in the Bronx as part of the $76 million purchase.

But instead of buying the Harlem store as envisioned in January, Village has elected to acquire Fairway’s Pelham Manor location. The owner of Food Bazaar, Bogopa Partners, is a backup bidder.

The Harlem Fairway opened in 1995, and shoppers from all over the city flocked to the store's

35,000-square foot space under the West Side Highway.

Supermarkets in general got a big boost in sales when the outbreak struck and New Yorkers headed indoors. The surge helped spark interest in Fairway’s locations outside Manhattan and spare it the fate of bankrupt retailers including Modell’s, which have moved to liquidate.

“It didn’t hurt that supermarkets were selling out their merchandise as the sale process proceeded, unlike every other retailer in Chapter 11,” said a person involved in Fairway’s bankruptcy process.

It isn’t clear how much Fairway’s sales grew in the past month, but it is apparent the ailing grocer struggled before Covid-19 hit the city. In the weeks between Jan. 23 and March 1, it posted a loss of about $9.4 million on $60 million in sales, according to court documents. The Upper West Side and Upper East Side locations were its only profitable supermarkets.

The fate of Fairway locations in Douglaston, Queens; Plainview, Long Island; and Stamford and Westbury, Conn., could not be determined. ■

ON NEW YORK

The good, the bad and the ugly in Cuomo’s budget Governor’s legislative rivals outgunned during pandemic

The good

ping as much as $6 billion in additional Medicaid aid.

The Legislature conceded that the budget may need to be reduced as the economic impact of the coronavirus shutdown becomes clearer.

If revenues fall below expectations, the state budget director can inform the Legislature how he will cut spending.

The Legislature has until April 15 to adopt a different plan.

The bad

Given that this is an The governor agreed to election year, the adopadopt a state operating tion of a spending plan of budget (excluding federal $177 billion as the gover- GREG DAVID aid) that is about $10 bilnor proposed in January lion more than the state is good. is expected to have.

The Legislature usually adds bilThis is the wing-and-a-prayer lions in additional spending, espe- part. cially for education. This time, state The hope is that the economy will spending on education actually has bounce back or Washington will been reduced by $1 billion. But lo- come up with more money. The first cal school districts are being prom- seems unlikely, but more aid from ised the same amount as last year, the federal government is likely. with the gap filled by crisis educaThe ugly tion aid from Washington.

The Legislature agreed to impleThe Legislature granted the govment crucial reforms for the state’s ernor the ability to borrow up to $12 Medicaid program, although some billion. No one disputes the need of them will be delayed because the for short-term borrowing because New York congressional delegation the extension of the income tax barred them while the state is tap- deadline to July 15 from April 15

CUOMO

FLICKR

I

n normal times a government budget is a detailed list of what money will be coming in and how it will be spent, and the idea is to end the year right on plan.

But the state budget adopted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature at the beginning of the month is just moving forward on a wing and a prayer.

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly in the budget.

means the state will see billions in income tax payments delayed by three months.

But the bill also allows the governor to convert the short-term loans into long-term debt without any approval from the Legislature—and maybe without much public debate.

Even worse is the governor’s lack of transparency. He may be winning praise for his daily factual presentations on the impact of the pandemic, but he is obscuring, if not hiding, the state’s fiscal condition. It gives him a free hand, but he shouldn’t have such discretion.

“We are at the early stages of what shapes up as the biggest state and city fiscal crisis since the Great Depression,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center. “Borrowing and short-term cuts aside, the budget doesn’t chart any clear path out of it.” ■

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APRIL 13, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 7

president K.C. Crain senior executive vice president Chris Crain group publisher Mary Kramer

EDITORIAL

publisher/executive editor

When reducing employee wages, companies should start at the top

editor Robert Hordt assistant managing editors

Christine Haughney (special projects), Janon Fisher, Gabriella Iannetta (digital) senior editor Telisha Bryan

benefit contributions, through June 30. Four other top executives at the firm are taking a 50% pay cut until that date.

Also locally, Mount Sinai Health System announced that 14 senior executives will take home only half their pay so it can shift millions of dollars to its pandemic response.

“While this does not come close to closing the hundreds of millions of dollars being lost per month, [CEO] Dr. Kenneth Davis and his executive leadership team … have offered and agreed to take a 50% pay cut for as long as necessary so that these dollars can be directed to our front lines in this fight,” a Mount Sinai spokeswoman said.

Cynics have questioned whether millionaires should be applauded for taking steps that probably won’t affect them too greatly in the long run. Davis, for example, earned $5.6 million in cash compensation in 2018, the last year for which salary information is available. Fifty percent of even that figure is still a nice haul.

But we shouldn’t go down that road. At a time when countless

IT’S IMPORTANT FOR CEOS TO DEMONSTRATE WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER New Yorkers feel better about losing pay, but some CEOs have made a show of solidarity by taking a pay cut. According to SEC filings, at Long Island medicalsupplies distributor Henry Schein Inc., CEO Stanley Bergman is taking a reduction of 100% of his base salary, less funds to cover his

EDITORIAL

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A

s the Covid-19 crisis rolls on, the economic outlook grows more dire for the average worker.

Thousands of employees at New York companies large and small have been laid off or furloughed, putting their ability to pay rent or even shop for groceries at risk.

Of course, businesses have to watch out for their bottom line. It would be impressive for employers to keep all staffers and pay them their salary or hourly wage as they wait for things to get back to normal, but it’s not practical.

Companies have to be making money to pay staff, and business is slow across industries.

Nothing will make out-of-work

Frederick P. Gabriel Jr.

people who make $15 per hour are being asked to shoulder a heavy burden, it’s important for the people at the top to show we’re all in this together. Even if the gesture is largely symbolic, it’s essential. Who wants to work for a company where the people at the bottom bear the entire brunt of lost revenue? When business as usual resumes, maybe these firms

whose executives are taking a pay cut will attract employees who want to work for a company where compassion rules the day.

Everyone is watching how businesses respond while their workers are in need. Chief executives who share in their pain are demonstrating that we all need to do our part to get through this crisis. ■

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OP-ED

www.crainsnewyork.com/events manager of conferences & events

Price gouging isn’t worth it

Ana Jimenez, ajimenez@crainsnewyork REPRINTS

If being a good corporate citizen isn’t enough, consider the civil fines and prison time

BY SAMI RASHID AND ADAM WOLFSON

G

ov. Andrew Cuomo recently cited prices the state is paying for medical supplies: $7.00 for masks that once cost 85 cents; $50,000 for ventilators that previously went for $25,000.

“You can see prices going up literally during the course of the day,” Cuomo said. “It’s like being on eBay.” As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds, price-gouging prosecutions and lawsuits will follow. Gouging laws generally do not apply to purchases by governments, though that could change.

In the meantime, prosecutors can use existing laws to target individuals and businesses for sales to consumers and other buyers.

Recently, prosecutors charged a Brooklyn man with selling a stockpile of medical-grade supplies— allegedly “enough to fill a large hospital”—at markups of as much as 700%.

Typically, a state of emergency

declaration following a natural disasters such as a fire, earthquake or hurricane triggers these laws’ applicability. However, states are now aiming the laws at Covid-19-related gouging, using the states of emergency declared by public officials as the triggering event.

The federal government has historically deferred to the states. U.S. Attorney General William Barr recently directed prosecutors to pursue the price gouging and hoarding of critical medical supplies. But more than 30 prosecutors recently wrote to Facebook, Amazon, Craigslist, eBay and Walmart urging them to police price gouging, warning against “unscrupulous sellers.”

Price-gouging laws typically prohibit selling goods such as commodities, fuel and food with price increases defined as “unconscionable” or “excessive.” New York prohibits the “unconscionably excessive” pricing of “goods and services vital and necessary

8 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | APRIL 13, 2020

for the health, safety and welfare of consumers.” The statute leaves the determination of “unconscionably excessive” to the courts.

In New York, prosecutions historically have focused on price increases for narrow groups of products, such as gasoline and generators. Courts considering whether certain goods or services are covered by the law likely would focus on whether such items fall under the statute’s purpose.

This might appear to exclude certain products such as medical face masks because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not recommend face masks as necessary for the general public.

But a business that wants to avoid legal risk would be wise to presume medical and safety items are actionable.

In states like New York, only the attorney general can bring actions.

New York’s attorney general recently said she has sent out 1,000 cease-and-desist letters to price gougers.

The state law applies to “all parties within the chain of distribution,” including wholesalers and distributors.

While online marketplaces including Amazon and eBay have received attention for alleged price gouging on their platforms, it is an open question whether such companies can be found liable.

Penalties, too, vary by state. In New York, price gouging is punishable by up to $25,000 per violation, which applies to each sale.

Being a good corporate citizen should provide motivation enough to refrain from price gouging; if not, consider the fate of some sellers. That Brooklyn hoarder is facing $250,000 in fines and five years in prison if convicted.

To quote a sign posted at a convenience store selling toilet paper for $10 a roll: “This is not a joke.” ■ Sami Rashid and Adam Wolfson are partners at the global law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.

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CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. chairman Keith E. Crain vice chairman Mary Kay Crain president K.C. Crain senior executive vice president Chris Crain secretary Lexie Crain Armstrong editor-in-chief emeritus Rance Crain chief financial officer Robert Recchia founder G.D. Crain Jr. [1885-1973] chairman Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr. [1911-1996]

OP-ED

Insurance industry needs pandemic relief

BY TANCRED SCHIAVONI AND GARY SVIRSKY

nesses without forcing insurers to cover claims for which they have no contractual liability, charged no premiums and acquired no reinsurance.

The proposed fund would leverage the expertise of private-sector actors to help address an enormous public problem. It would help not only the affected businesses, but also the people they employ and their communities. This is why both policyholders and insurers have come together in this effort.

Why do we need a fund if there is business-interruption insurance?

Many people think that business-interruption insurance should cover losses caused when businesses shutter to avoid spreading Covid-19. But when property policies include coverage for business interruption, they typically refer to lost income and expenses incurred when operations are disrupted because of actual property damage.

An arena that would host an NHL or NBA game if not for Covid-19 may be empty, but it still stands intact and undamaged. The same is true of restaurants, hotels, airplanes and the like. Therefore, if a habitable property closes because of coronavirus fears, the threshold direct physical loss requirement will not be satisfied—and there will be

N

ow that the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which will help support people and businesses during the crisis, is law, Congress needs to think about getting the economy back on its feet.

That is obviously an important goal on its own. But it’s also necessary to make sure there is insurance available for future pandemic risks and business-interruption losses.

The precedent for achieving this comes from 9/11: a government-backed fund to handle existing losses and a separate facility to address future claims. Setting up such a fund is an eminently more sensible approach than rewriting insurance policies by legislative fiat.

On March 31 groups from the insurance, retail, hospitality and other industries wrote a letter to President Donald Trump and congressional leaders urging them to create such a fund.

In addition to the CARES Act, the fund would “assist with economic recovery and mitigate a larger financial crisis resulting from widespread disruption of economic activity,” according to the letter. It would provide liquidity to busi-

no business-interruption coverage.

Even if the property-damage hurdle could be met, policies exclude coverage for damage arising from pathogens, bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing agents.

That exclusion was introduced after the SARS outbreak in 2002. It was meant to deal specifically with outbreaks of contagious diseases, such as Covid-19.

Recognizing that business-interruption recovery may not exist, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Ohio have introduced legislation to eliminate the exclusion from the policies. The proposals all have the same objective: mandate that carriers pay for uninsured Covid-19 losses. The list of states advocating such mandates is likely to grow.

Key coverage An immediate obstacle to setting up a Covid-19 fund is not knowing the scope of the claims; losses will depend on how long businesses remain closed. But the fund can be

ISTOCK

Sector should not have to bear the burden of this disaster without government help

set up on a pay-as-you-go basis, with seed money provided by advanced congressional appropriations.

Instead of a prefunded pool of money, the federal government would incur an obligation similar to the funding structure for the 9/11 fund. Insurers could then process and pay claims as they did with the 9/11 fund. Insurers are equipped to do just that, and they have plenty of experience handling claims. A special administrator from the U.S. Treasury Department would oversee the process.

The proposed fund would be built for speed. It would provide a

simple-to-file form that could be submitted electronically and processed quickly. In fact, the program proposes a 30-day turnaround for prioritized applications and a 15day turnaround for expedited interim compensation.

The fund would allow businesses to retain or rehire employees, maintain worker benefits and help cover operating expenses. With some 10 million Americans having filed for unemployment in the past two weeks, that would be needed relief.

The proposed fund might also finance lost wages for sick employees and lost business revenues— but not lost profits.

The fund would address business loss without the clumsiness and inconsistency of state statutes, which are sure to be handicapped by obvious constitutional problems and economic deficiencies.

The fund would spread the losses across many industries rather than foisting them on insurers alone. ■ Tancred Schiavoni and Gary Svirsky are partners in the New York office of O’Melveny & Myers.

Schiavoni is chair of the law firm’s insurance practice group. Svirsky is a litigator experienced in coverage and other types of commercial disputes.

OP-ED

Get creative to rescue bars and restaurants Even in the thick of the crisis, we need to think about maximizing a rebound

BY KEN GOLDBERG

BUCK ENNIS

N

ew York just passed its budget to keep the state functioning. No easy feat while our home is yet again ground zero of an earth-shattering event. But our city, state and federal representatives have only begun to tackle the sheer difficulty of reviving our economy and our communities.

While politicians may enjoy discussing their support for small businesses, we need them to follow through on their commitment, particularly to bars, restaurants and their suppliers that have been forced to close for the greater good.

The efforts have been encouraging thus far, but far more needs to be done.

Indeed, these social pillars of our neighborhoods are fighting a severe uphill battle. The best-case scenario is that most bars and restaurants will have lost about three months of revenue before we begin to return to normalcy.

But revenue losses already have exceeded $2 billion.

In addition, social distancing and mandated reduced capacity will keep these establishments from fully opening their doors this spring and summer. Even worse, tourists will not return to the city for the foreseeable future in the numbers

we once saw.

The most important work starts at the state level. Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave a small boost to these businesses by waiving fines for late sales-tax payments and granting a 90-day moratorium on commercial eviction.

These things help in the short term. But Albany has to be creative in its solutions.

With an incredibly tight budget, lawmakers should be particularly keen on opportunities that expand

revenue for bars, restaurants and the state.

One way to do that is through expanded gaming opportunities. We already know how helpful gaming has been to New Jersey’s economy, and there’s no reason we should not follow suit. We should encourage New Yorkers to stay here and take up new entertainment options rather than head across the river for sports betting with friends at bars.

The City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio also have a major role to

play. The city should consider following Councilman Keith Powers’ proposal and temporarily reduce the commercial rent tax, which hurts businesses in central parts of Manhattan. These particularly high taxes are burdensome in good economic times. But as we enter a recession the likes of which our country has never before experienced, we need to encourage bars and restaurants—which are facing extremely slim margins—to return to the parts of the city that drive tourism. During a recession this will have a much larger impact on revenue than a tax.

Our federal delegation also needs to step up. While the CARES Act provides hundreds of billions in loans and grants to small businesses, the mom-and-pop bars already are having an extremely hard time navigating the Byzantine process of

accessing the new Small Business Administration–backed financial capital.

How can we expect a bar owner to access these funds when even the Treasury Department can’t figure it out?

Of note, small businesses are defined as having up to 500 employees. For a restaurant with a staff of 10, a 500-person company is hardly on the same scale. In turn, the companies with the most resources will perversely be the ones to access the most additional financing.

So before Congress even turns to pursuing “phase four” of its stimulus efforts, it needs to improve how constituents get the federal aid they deserve. Once Congress begins debating the next stimulus, it should create a separate category with separate funding for small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

Even in the throes of the virus, we need to be prepared with an exit strategy that maximizes our chances for rebounding to where we were. The path is arduous, but with a helping hand from each level of government, our bars and restaurants will serve New Yorkers once again. ■ Ken Goldberg is the president of the Amusement and Music Owners Association of New York.

APRIL 13, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 9

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WHO OWNS THE BLOCK

Fulton Street steams ahead A once-dowdy strip in the Financial District has bet its huge towers on a turnaround

130 WILLIAMS ST.

BY C.J. HUGHES

A

5 BEEKMAN ST.

25 PARK ROW A 50-story, 110-unit condo tower is rising from a partnership of L&M Development Partners, and Joe and Rachelle Friedman, the couple who formerly owned J&R Music and Computer World, which closed in 2014 after decades on the block.

A 51-story, 67-unit condo connected to the Beekman Hotel, also called Beekman Residences, has sponsor units six years after marketing began. Last week, No. 30A, a two-bedroom, was $2 million, according to Streeteasy; the four-bedroom penthouse was $12.5 million.

8 SPRUCE ST. At 76 stories, this wiggly-walled 904-unit rental tower, designed by Gehry Partners, was the tallest residential building in the city when it opened in 2011. It was also the Fulton corridor’s first major new project in decades.

EXHIBIT DOWNTOWN AT 60 FULTON ST.

75 NASSAU ST.

A 23-story rental from Socius Development Group on the site of a former parking garage with 120 studio to two-bedroom apartments, 30 of which have below-market rents. On March 24, a one-bedroom was $4,250.

Its address is actually 29 Cliff St.

Lexin Capital bought this in 2014 for $46 million and then snapped up additional air rights in 2018 from 130 Fulton St., a prewar condo, for $3 million. Conceived as a condo-rental tower, the project, which does not yet have permits, will now be all rentals, with 250 units across 45 stories, said Lexin CEO Metin Negrin.

19 DUTCH ST. A 483-unit rental building owned

by Carmel Partners, a national firm with holdings in California, Seattle and Denver, was developed in 2018 on a site purchased from Lightstone, which assembled it over 18 months with the acquisition of five properties and eight air-rights parcels.

130 WILLIAM ST.

108 FULTON ST. For years a dorm for Pace University, a major local landlord, this 15-story building was sold in 2016 to DSA Property Group for $51 million. After converting it into an 84unit rental, DSA sold it last year to Thurcon Properties for $78 million.

Lightstone, a national developer, is building this 66-story, 242-unit condo tower, which is designed by David Adjaye and has a pool, IMAX theater and 800-foot roof deck. Closings are planned for this summer.

Sales began in summer 2018.

LIGHTSTONE GROUP, GOOGLE MAPS

s the developer Lightstone puts the finishing touches on 130 William St., a 66-story luxury condo the color of hardened lava, the transformation of the Fulton Street corridor in Manhattan’s Financial District seems to be heating up.

Once the way to Brooklyn ferry docks and later, the heart of New York’s insurance district, Fulton Street in recent years turned dowdy—a place to pass en route to the South Street Seaport.

But style is on the mind of Lightstone’s 242-unit project, which is scheduled to open this summer, even with the outbreak of the coronavirus, said Scott Avram, a Lightstone senior vice president.

Units at the high-rise, start at $786,000 for a 436-square-foot studio, and the four-bedroom, four-and-halfbath penthouse can be had for $20 million.

In context, the average list price of the 63 studios for sale in the Financial District in late March, including new and existing units, was $769,000, according to Streeteasy.com.

In 2014, Lightstone paid $60 million for the site, which held a half-empty and financially distressed office building owned by Triangle Assets. Lightstone tacked on $15 million in air rights. When the condo sells out, the developer is expecting a $676 million haul, according to 2019 state filings, though Avram declined to provide specific sales numbers. Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies kicked in a $305 million construction loan.

“The market here was artificially depressed by the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Sandy, which put it into a holding pattern,” said Avram, who added the infrastructure improvements like the Fulton Center, a subway hub redesigned in 2014 in a $1.4 billion mega-project, has helped revive the area. “In some ways, it’s a fresh and new neighborhood.”

Lightstone, which originally planned a hotel-condo in the building, owned other sites on the street, like a multi-lot parcel on Nassau Street that it sold to the Carmel Partners, which built 19 Dutch, a glassy 483-unit rental that opened in 2018. Some developers on Fulton, which is dotted with chain restaurants, see condos as risky in the untested submarket, and so have embraced rentals. Among them is Lexin Capital, which scrapped plans for a condo-rental at a windswept site at 75 Nassau Street in favor of a 250-unit rental, said Metin Negrin, its chief executive. Likewise, Scott Aaron, the principal of Socius Development Group, working with partner Parkland Group, shied away from a condo after demolishing an eight-story parking garage at Cliff Street. There now instead is Exhibition at 60 Fulton St., a darktoned 23-story, 120-unit tower that debuted last year. “I think Fulton Street has grown up,” Aaron said. ■

10 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | APRIL 13, 2020

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Hospitals want financial assistance from health insurers to battle Covid-19

A

group of New York hospital associations are asking Gov. Andrew Cuomo to require commercial health insurers to make a greater financial contribution to the state’s Covid-19 response.

They want insurers to help alleviate facilities’ cash flow issues after hospitals canceled elective surgeries to free up capacity to manage the viral outbreak. They suggested this could be done by dropping claim

$350 million a month due to the outbreak. The impact includes the cancellation of elective procedures, higher staffing and overtime pay, and increased supply costs.

The Healthcare Association of New York State, upstate’s Iroquois Healthcare Alliance, the Pandion Optimization Alliance in Rochester, the Suburban Hospital Alliance and Western New York Hospital Association all signed on to the letter.

“For the past two and a half weeks, I've been on calls with every business contact we have—vendors, community leaders—who were asking what they could do to help,” said Kevin Dahill, president of the Suburban Hospital Alliance, which represents facilities in the Hudson Valley and Long Island.

“The only ones we never heard a word from were the commercial insurers. They have just been radio silent. They have a vested interest in the health care industry in New York state. It’s about time they step up,

“IT’S ABOUT TIME THEY STEP UP. IT LOOKS LIKE THEY’LL HAVE TO BE FORCED TO” appeals or by providing advance payments to hospitals based on past data to keep money flowing.

Local hospitals are spending considerably to treat Covid-19 patients.

Major academic centers, including New York–Presbyterian and Mount Sinai, are facing financial losses of

and it looks like they’re going to have to be forced to.”

Gary Fitzgerald, president and CEO of the Iroquois Healthcare Alliance, said a survey of his member hospitals showed some had as little as eight days’ worth of cash on hand. The cancellation of elective surgeries across the state has hurt them financially, he said.

“The plans obviously need the hospitals in their communities as much as communities need the hospitals,” he said.

Kenneth Raske, president and CEO of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said he was not initially aware of the associations’ letter but supports insurers contributing more. He said provisions in the state budget that prevent insurers from denying payment for Covid-19 treatment in emergency departments and hospitals through retrospective reviews would help hospitals.

Doing their part?

Cuomo shared last week that the number of new hospitalizations and

intubations had been dropping, signaling a possible plateau, but the total number of Covid-19 cases continues to rise. The state has received hundreds of ventilators from California, Oregon and Washington state to hanRASKE dle the surge of patients.

A spokesman for the state Department of Health said it is reviewing the letter.

Eric Linzer, CEO of the state Health Plan Association, said plans have stepped up to alleviate pressure on individuals and small businesses during the crisis. The governor eliminated consumers' cost-sharing payments for Covid-19 testing, and some plans are not requiring consumers to pay their share of medical bills for in-network virus treatment.

The Cuomo administration also has reopened the Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollment period

and directed state-regulated insurers to give policyholders until June 1 to pay premiums.

“Everyone is doing their part at a time when we’re facing an unprecedented health care crisis that has resulted in the economy coming to a screeching halt,” Linzer said. “Advance payments should be done on a case-by-case basis. Not every hospital is going to be in need of an advance payment.”

Ultimately Raske thinks hospitals must be made whole by the federal government. He asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to prioritize New York City– area hospitals in distributing the $100 billion set aside for health care providers in the $2.2 trillion coronavirus aid bill.

“The real solution to our economic woes, in terms of relief, is going to come from Washington,” he said. ■ GETTY IMAGES

BY JONATHAN LAMANTIA

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APRIL 13, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 11

INSTANT EXPERT

The federal government’s small-business rescue plan

BY BRIAN PASCUS

THE ISSUE

1

2

There are a number of players involved in the CARES Act, the small-business recovery package, but it is the Treasury Department and its secretary, Steve Mnuchin, who hold the purse strings. The Treasury is in MNUCHIN charge of allocating the $349 billion; the Small Business Administration is in charge of working with more than 1,800 SBA-approved banks and lending agencies on the terms these loans will be offered.

Yet there is still no definitive list of banks and regional lenders that are providing loans. Banks and lenders can choose whether to opt in or out of the program.

The SBA is overseen by Jovita Carranza, who was previously deputy administrator of the SBA under President George W. Bush. The Federal Reserve, led by Chairman Jerome Powell, is prominently involved after the Fed announced it would guarantee all loans made by banks and lenders.

GETTY IMAGES

THE PLAYERS

On April 3, small businesses in New York and across the country began applying for loans as part of Congress’ Paycheck Protection Program, a $349 billion measure within the $2 trillion CARES Act. Congress devised the loan program to act as a lifeline for small businesses during the pandemic by issuing credit lines and even offering direct infusions of cash to business owners and their employees in the form of convertible grants.

Under the program almost any business of fewer than 500 employees that existed before Feb. 15 can access a forgivable loan of up to $10 million, although the loan amount is calculated as being two and a half times the average total monthly payroll cost for each individual business.

Eligible businesses include independent contractors, self-employed individuals and sole proprietors.

Employees can be rehired and added to payroll until June 30.

WHAT’S NEXT

5

THERE IS NO LIST OF BANKS INVOLVED AND LENDERS CAN CHOOSE WHETHER TO OPT IN OR OUT OF THE PROGRAM

YEAH, BUT . . .

3

Even though the Treasury and the SBA have made loans available to small businesses, there is still a catch.

While the Treasury has expanded funding for small-business lending from its annual average of $25 billion to $349 billion, it’s not doing anything to expand the lending procedures of banks, big and small alike. It is an issue of staffing. The 1,800 SBA-approved banks and lending agencies are now being asked to validate a tsunami of loan requests, many of them from clients with whom they have no prior relationship.

This underwriting takes time and must be done thoroughly to protect both the businesses and the banks setting the terms of the loan.

The program got off to a bumpy start. Big banks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase wouldn’t accept applications right away and Wells Fargo stopped and then resumed processing loans after the federal government relaxed a cap on its growth restrictions.

SOME BACKGROUND PELOSI

4

The Paycheck Protection Program carries so much risk because there’s never been a loan origination plan of its scale. The SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan, which provides up to $2 million in assistance, carries an interest rate of 3.75%, and small-business owners seeking more than $25,000 in assistance must put up some form of collateral. Even the traditional SBA 7(a) loan used by most small businesses requires years of documentation and strict lending standards.

That has all been thrown out the window because of the outbreak.

Business owners who qualify don’t have to repay their loans.

ISTOCK

GETTY IMAGES

While a little over a week old, the PPP has been controversial.

The constant questions about its loan requirement guidelines and the differing exceptions banks can make in how they lend have created confusion among participants.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House of Representatives is already in talks to pass a $1 trillion CARES Act part 2, although it’s unclear how much of that money will be allocated for small-business loans.

While the SBA doesn’t anticipate the program running out of money, the indecision by banks and lenders over how much and to whom they lend could shut out thousands of small-business owners from accessing the program’s financial lifeline. Amendments to the measure may be added if enough businesses express their frustrations with accessing funds.

12 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | APRIL 13, 2020

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

F

ilming is shut down, but investors are still betting on New York as a production hub.

The development team behind a $100 million film-production studio for Lionsgate in Yonkers said last week that it had closed a $40 million construction loan and hoped to start building as soon as the state gives its approval.

CIT Group is providing the financing to project developers Great Point Capital Management and National Resources.

There was some urgency to get the deal done. Lionsgate, the sole tenant for the studio, has productions lined up in the facility before the end of the year.

“While it will take some time to ramp back up, there will still be a lot of demand for production space when the time comes,” said Robert Halmi, CEO of Great Point. “We felt this was something we could get done, so we got on the phone. Even with kids hollering in the background, we got a deal closed.”

Lionsgate has leased out for at least 10 years the entirety of the complex, which will include three 20,000-square-foot stages and two 10,000-square-foot stages.

The project is fully funded, with the other estimated $60 million in costs coming through equity investors. Halmi, a media executive who founded the Hallmark Channel, said the team wants to start construction as soon as possible. But the state has banned all nonessential work until at least the end of the month to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

If the developers get the all-clear sign in four weeks, Halmi said, construction could proceed as planned, with at least one stage ready for filming before the end of the year.

If the delays last longer, “we’ll double up crews and work a lot more overtime,” he said.

Expanding capacity The Yonkers studio, which will be built near a Metro-North station 20 miles north of Grand Central, fits

into a broad expansion of New York’s regional filming capacity.

Steiner Studios in Brooklyn and Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens have major expansions in the works. A new studio in Queens is in the planning stages from an investor group that includes Wildflower Ltd. and Robert De Niro.

The tax break for film and television production that has spurred production was extended through 2025 in the budget for the news fiscal year.

With most Americans stuck at home, streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu are reporting record traffic. They will soon need more new shows and films to keep customers’ attention. That bodes well for the Yonkers project.

The first productions at the studio will be television series for streaming platforms, Halmi said.

“It’s amazing how quickly networks and streamers can go through product,” Halmi said, “particularly when they don’t have something new delivered every week.” ■

BLOOMBERG

Developers land $40M loan for Yonkers Lionsgate studio Billionaire family donates $10M to city hospital workers fund

BY GWEN EVERETT LEON AND DEBRA BLACK donated $10 million to the Mayor’s Fund to provide food and home care supplies to city hospital workers.

Leon Black is an investor, art collector and chairman at the Museum of Modern Art. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the gift, which will go to the Healthcare Heroes fund, last week. Aside from the initial donation, the Blacks will match donations up to an additional $10 million, the mayor said.

The program—a joint effort between the Mayor’s Fund and food, facility and service provider Aramark—will deliver at least 300,000 packages of food and household supplies to hospital workers “to ease their burden and help their families,” de Blasio said, adding that the supplies could be delivered soon.

The Red Cross will execute deliveries, and the Robinhood Foundation will manage donations and matching, the mayor said. ■

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FROM PAGE 1

addition, it was going to fund thousands of new buses and subway cars.

The largest capital plan in city history, transportation historian Larry Penner called it.

But the coronavirus pandemic has thrown a monkey wrench into those plans.

Now the MTA's intractable budgeting problems are coming back to hurt the agency at a time when the organization is more vulnerable than ever, affecting the future modernization of the city's transportation infrastructure. That may halt projects such as the Second Avenue Subway expansion, the construction of four Metro-North stations in the Bronx, and the replacement of nearly 3,300 buses and subway cars.

“The MTA is hemorrhaging money and needs help,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee.

“The capital improvement program is on pause.”

That’s partly because Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus containment strategy has radically altered transportation patterns, and ridership numbers have dropped across-the-board since the pandemic began.

Subway ridership has fallen 87%, bus ridership 60%, LIRR ridership 71% and Metro-North ridership 94% compared to the same time in late March 2019, MTA Chairman Patrick Foye said.

The sharp falloff in ridership has translated into a revenue decline of more than $125 million per week, which puts the MTA on pace for an estimated $6.5 billion loss for the rest of the year. Although Congress is providing money for lost fare revenue, that’s not going to help existing construction and new projects.

And there are plenty of other problems hurting the agency’s capital plan. They include the agency’s need to finish outstanding projects before it moves forward, its debt load and its heavy dependence on the municipal bond market.

What’s holding it back Part of the problem: The MTA entered the coronavirus pandemic already saddled with financial challenges. When Cuomo signed off on

CAPITAL ISSUES

the budget in January, the MTA still hadn’t finished $15 billion in projects from earlier capital AMOUNT of plans. projects left over from “There is... earlier capital carryover work improvement from the 2015plans.

19 capital program where the contracts have yet to be awarded,” said PenAMOUNT MTA ner, who led pays in interest the Federal on its loans for every $6 it Transit Admintakes in. istration’s New York office for 31 years. “They are legally bound to award those contracts.”

When you add in the old projects and the new ones, the MTA’s capital plan is closer to $70 billion, said Andrew Rein of the Citizens Budget Commission.

These old projects take precedence over new plans, creating both headaches and confusion for city planners trying to set funding priorities.

Looming over everything is the debt the MTA holds.

The the transit administration pays a dollar in interest on its loans for every six dollars it takes in, said Danny Pearlstein of the Riders Alliance.

“They’re in a really fiscally signif-

$15B $1

PHOTOGRAPHY BUCK ENNIS

TRANSIT

EMPTY TRAINS: The MTA’s Metro North line has seen a sharp drop in ridership, as have other of its systems.

“A big part of what happens to the capital plan is what happens to bond yields,” said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute. “Do they have to pay slightly higher interest rates to access the market, and does that mean they need to pay more for the capital improvement plan?”

The MTA’s revenue projections for the 2020-24 capital improvement plan also depend on its operating budget—fares, tolls, real estate taxes, sales taxes, and city and state subsidies. But those are affected by the widespread disruption caused by the coronavirus and the uncertain timeline for when the economy will return to normal.

“They’re counting on $3 billion in revenue, and it’s totally naive to believe this is going to happen,” Penner said.

MTA officials also counted on an additional $15 billion from Cuomo’s controversial congestion pricing legislation. The significant decline in New York City traffic since the outbreak of the coronavirus, with no clear indication of when typical traffic patterns will resume, present a clear threat to the project.

“IF THE SERVICE QUALITY DECLINES THEN RIDERS WILL LEAVE THE SYSTEM” icant challenging position,” Rein said. “They’re bleeding money on a daily basis.”

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the MTA’s outstanding debt is projected to approach $53 billion by 2023.

It also doesn’t help that the MTA depends heavily on the municipal bond market to finance its projects.

Officials had hoped that $25 billion in bond sales would provide its largest funding source for the capital budget. But as yields rise sharply, experts fear investors will abandon these bonds, and the MTA won’t be able to pay its obligations.

What’s more, the congestion pricing plan has yet to gain federal approval by the Department of Transportation, primarily because of the Trump administration’s concerns over the plan’s environmental impact.

“A lot of questions are up in the air,” said Gelinas, noting the future tax base of the city and the willingness of individuals and businesses to shoulder a novel congestion charge are unknowns.

When asked at a March 25 press conference which specific programs in the capital improvement plan would be cut, Foye said it was too early to tell.

“Look we’re three weeks into the pandemic; we haven’t made any decisions,” he said. “We’re developing a number of scenarios and plans. It’s widely premature to speak in terms of specifics.”

What it takes to move forward Transit experts agree it’s going to take creative budgeting to salvage any of these projects in the 2020-24 capital improvement plan, specifically essential ones such as making 70 stations accessible to the disabled, repairing tracks and switches, and maintaining tunnel lighting and ventilation.

It starts with combining projects,

such as putting five or six different elevator projects together, instead of doing station-by-station work.

“Bundling projects gives them an opportunity to do projects more efficiently and cheaper and more quickly,” Daglian said.

Prioritizing projects Projects underway, such as the repair of the L line damaged by Hurricane Sandy, will take precedence over aspirational plans, such as the Second Avenue subway expansion, which affects a small percentage of the MTA’s 5 million daily riders.

Transportation experts almost uniformly agree that the MTA must prioritize essential repairs, such as signals and switch replacement.

“Modernizing the subway signals is probably the single most important need,” Gelinas said.

“There will be money,” Rein said.

“Maybe not the $70 billion, but there will be money to focus on the state of good repair.”

The agency must not let a drop in service become a reason riders consider alternatives, transit experts warn.

“If the service quality declines, then riders will leave the system,” Rein said. “Then you enter that budgeting death spiral.” ■

DECLINING RIDERSHIP: Few people are riding the subways or using MTA facilities given the concern over the coronavirus pandemic.

14 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | APRIL 13, 2020

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businesses and nonprofits is coping with the fallout from the pandemic.

Brooklyn Navy Yard Three weeks ago Ecological Solutions, a company at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, easily pivoted from making green cleaning products to hand sanitizer. At the same time Navy Yard CEO David Ehrenberg

BLOOMBERG

EHRENBERG

92nd Street Y

Apthorp Pharmacy

The landmark 92nd Street Y has achieved enormous success from its online efforts. Its finances, however, are now a major problem.

The Y is producing essentially all of its adult art classes online and delivering 85% of its adult music programs, 95% of its children’s music classes as well as the vast majority of its private music lessons virtually.

One statistic tells the story. In the last month it has streamed 16 programs on various channels, attract-

PINSKY

BLOOMBERG

called the city’s Department of Health in response to the department’s urgent need for hospital supplies. The DOH said it needed face masks and gowns.

Ehrenberg sent samples of what the DOH wanted to some of his tenants. They quickly figured out they couldn’t get the supplies they needed to make the masks, but face shields were possible. Bednark Studios, a specialist in fabricating interior displays, quickly created the prototype. Duggal Greenhouse’s events space was empty, so the two companies partnered and produced 10,000 shields in the first five days. Now about 250 workers have sent more than 200,000 shields to hospitals, with more on the way.

Meanwhile Cyre Precision prototyped the needed gown. It was relatively easy for Cyre to do it; the company designs and prototypes gear for the country’s special forces.

The Navy Yard’s other small garment companies reopened, recalled their workers and hired others, and a workforce of more than 200 is producing the gowns.

The companies are going to get paid, but the idea is merely to break even so they can resume work when the economy restarts. The mayor has twice held his daily briefings at the Navy Yard.

The Navy Yard CEO’s biggest task is to keep it solvent. Most of its tenants are in no position to pay rent. It is dipping into its rainy-day fund, drawing on its credit line and exploring long-term borrowing.

“We have a long runway to figure out our finances while we see how deep and long the shutdown goes.”

Ehrenberg said.

shoot up 300% as supermarkets sought to stock shelves. With that and a new business of delivering orders of $250 or more to 777 customers’ homes, Baldor was able to hold steady at around half its normal revenue.

But after about 10 days of panic shopping, “the retail business went to sleep,” said Ben Walker, vice president of sales and marketing.

Some customers such as Whole Foods closed locations because of diagnosed cases of Covid-19 in their stores. Baldor furloughed about 500 of its 2,200 employees.

But demand began to ramp up for the home-delivery service, with an increase of 50% day over day.

March 30 was “a huge Monday,” Walker said. “We think we found our breaking point” of about 1,000 to 1,500 orders per day, with demand up to four times that, thanks to 6,000 new account sign-ups daily. Some suppliers have shuttered; others with excess capacity, such as fish companies, are partnering with Baldor. The company is hiring back all of its drivers and some warehouse employees.

But operations at Baldor are set up to put together big orders. Now that home customers want a pound of pasta or a single head of broccoli, there’s a bottleneck, and Baldor is

from the Paycheck Protection Program. Once everyone is back on payroll, Limb hopes to find a way to reopen at least for takeout and delivery.

“We’re hoping that in a few weeks that’s possible,” she said.

Nami Nori

A month after FreshDirect executives noticed soaring demand, their ability to meet customer expectations seemed to hit a low.

Customer complaints on Facebook, Reddit and Twitter revolved around the lack of delivery time slots even a week in advance. Orders that did arrive sometimes didn’t include all the items ordered.

The website and app were crashing.

On April 5 the company wrote an email hinting at the strain it was under.

“Even though we are working around the clock to fill as many orders as possible, and have increased our capacity significantly, we are doing so with many fewer employees in our facility and on the roads,” it read.

The company promised to open more delivery times, simplify product assortment to better fulfill orders and hire more people.

Data from 2019 showed that online grocers owned just 3% of the $800 billion grocery industry, with only 1 in 10 American adults ordering food online in a given month. In the third week of March, orders had gone up 40% from the same period the previous year.

FreshDirect declined to comment on how much more orders had surged in early April and what was behind the fulfillment failures.

On March 24 it launched a program through the offices of all five borough presidents to donate weekly deliveries of 10,000 grocery boxes a day to New Yorkers in need. ■

For about a week and a half after the restaurant shutdown order, Nami Nori, a hand roll eatery in the West Village, set up a takeout and delivery shop. “It was practically like opening a brand-new restaurant,” said Lisa Limb, one of the restaurant’s partners.

By the time the partners figured out operations, conditions had shifted. Several sushi chefs who live in New Jersey had to be home at 8 p.m. because of a curfew.

“That’s a specialized position. It wasn’t something we could just fill in at that point,” Limb said.

Although inside Nami Nori employees followed safety protocol based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contracted delivery drivers weren’t LIMB wearing masks or gloves, and employees with a long commute were still riding the subway. When the partners asked employees for feedback, they said they were growing uncomfortable with coming to work.

On March 28 Nami Nori closed.

For two weeks it had been paying a supplement to previously laid-off workers and employees workMCINERNEY ing shorter hours, but that has ended.

Now Limb is trying to raise money for them through a gofundme.com page until unemployment insurance kicks in, followed by money

FreshDirect

Advertising Section ing 936,694 total page views. In an average year, 300,000 people enter the building.

Meanwhile, money is getting tight. The Y instituted and negotiated with its union organizationwide pay cuts. The highest-paid workers are taking the biggest cuts, both in terms of dollars and percentages, with many lower-paid employees spared any. In return, it hopes to avoid furloughs during the spring.

The Y is trying to produce some revenue from its activities, as are many nonprofits. It is also seeking aid from the federal stimulus bill.

But without federal aid, more severe cutbacks loom.

“It just is not possible to continue to produce meaningful content without securing meaningful revenues,” said CEO Seth Pinsky.

At first Russell Gellis’ Apthorp Pharmacy was flooded with business. Upper West Siders stocked up on their prescriptions and over-thecounter cold medicine. But after March 20 business dried up.

“It’s been like death,” Gellis said, with sales down 70% as customers left for GELLIS homes outside the city, takBUCK ENNIS

WALKER

trying to rebalance its operations without making a huge investment outside of the wholesale business it soon hopes to reenter.

“We’re preparing to be in this for a little while,” Walker said, “but we look forward to the day when we deliver to restaurants again.”

BUCK ENNIS

FROM PAGE 3

NAMI NORI

ing their pharmacy orders with them.

The pharmacist is spending more time handling requests for transfers of prescriptions to the Hamptons, upstate and New Jersey, he said.

Because he doesn’t get paid for transfers, the business is now running in the red.

Still, Gellis has let only one of his 27 employees go. To cover payroll, he spent April 3 trying to put in his application for the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program. First, he tried his bank, Chase, but it wasn’t ready. Live Oak told him it wouldn’t process new customers until it had finished working with existing ones. Finally he submitted his application to Lendio, an online lending marketplace.

As he waits, he worries. If he lets employees go, he wonders, will they do better collecting unemployment benefits and not want to return? That would leave him on the hook for a loan for payroll he doesn’t need.

BALDOR

PIVOT

Baldor Foods After restaurants were ordered to close, food wholesaler Baldor Specialty Foods saw its retail business

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SNAPS Photos from the city’s biggest galas, fundraisers and special events

BY CHERYL S. GRANT

Joyful commemoration

MADISON VOELKEL/BFA.COM

The Jewish Museum held its 34th annual Purim Ball on March 3 at The Pierre. The Monte Carlo–themed event, attended by more than 500 guests, raised $2 million to support the museum.

Robert Pruzan, chairman of the museum’s board; Rachel Feinstein; Claudia Gould, director of the museum; and Rivka Saker

Musician Thomas Mars; candlemaker Char Defrancesco; his husband, fashion designer Marc Jacobs; and Sofia Coppola, screenwriter and director

CORKY LEE

Celebration of tradition

Ceramicist and musician Marc Armitano Domingo; art critic and writer Antwaun Sargent; Ryan McGinley, photographer and performance and installation artist; and Miles Greenberg

Kinding Sindaw, an organization that educates people about indigenous Filipino culture, held its 27th gala show March 12, raising $10,160.

Among the 30 guests at the event, held at La Mama, were Faisal Monal; Bai Cabayan Bacar; gala chairwoman Loida Nicolas Lewis; Leonorah Dirampaten Grande; Potri Ranka Manis, founder and executive director of the organization; and Mohamad-Ali Hadji Usman.

SEE MORE SNAPS AT CRAINSNEWYORK.COM/SNAPS. GET YOUR GALA IN SNAPS. 18 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | APRIL 13, 2020

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4/10/20 12:08 PM

OUT OF OFFICE

Where to get takeout as you work from home Some restaurants offer discounts for direct orders

BY CARA EISENPRESS

W

FIELDS GOOD CHICKEN

FIELDS GOOD CHICKEN

ith restaurants no longer open for dine-in service, some city eateries are selling food for pickup or delivery—keeping employees paid and attempting to generate revenue. Here are 10 that are still cooking during the crisis. Their menu offerings and opening times may change often as the pandemic evolves. And many places offer discounts for ordering directly from their website or by phone rather than through a third-party platform like Grubhub.

DA TOSCANO 4 to 9 p.m.

The recently opened Italian restaurant takes call-in orders for customers to pick up and makes deliveries for

DA TOSCANO

GLASSERIE Noon to 8:30 p.m.

Glasserie’s Middle Eastern–style dishes include falafel and lamb-chickpea stew. It’s now delivering prepared foods, wine, beer, liquor and groceries including coffee, tomatoes, rice, dates and toilet paper to Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Long Island City and Sunnyside.

95 Commercial St., Greenpoint JUST SALAD 10:30 or 11 a.m. (varies by location) to 8 p.m.

Office workers missing

SOHO DINER 6:30 a.m. to midnight The diner’s menu of contemporary favorites includes a kale salad, a burger and roasted salmon. They’re available for delivery along with milkshakes, sundaes, wine and beer.

320 W. Broadway

their weekday lunches can order from the regular menu of make-your-own and custom salads and request contactless delivery. The company is also supplying 10,000 meals a week to staff at hospitals in the Mount Sinai system.

Locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn KATZ’S DELI Call for hours Pastrami sandwiches and matzo ball soup are on Katz’s delivery menu of Jewishdeli fare. Plus, there is cheesecake for dessert.

205 E. Houston St.

KATZ’S DELI

KAT

Z’S

DEL

I

SOHO DINER

CONCORD HILL Noon to 10 p.m.

This spot offers hearty foods such as burgers and a lamb shank, but the chef also features vegetables in dishes including caramelized eggplant and lentils and quinoa tabbouleh. In addition to offering lunch and dinner for pickup and delivery, Concord Hill also has brunch and happy hour specials on cheese and charcuterie platters and tapas. Those who order directly from the restaurant instead of through a third-party app get 15% off alcohol purchases.

374 Graham Ave., Williamsburg

FIELDS GOOD CHICKEN 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The fast-casual restaurant is delivering its regular chicken plates, bowls and salads.

But it has added a Family Meal,which includes chicken, salad, three sides, sauces and gluten-free cornbread, serving four to five people. The company also has set up Birds for Good, which accepts donations for meals to be sent to health care workers and others on the front lines. The restaurant offers free delivery through its app and a contactless-pickup option.

24 E. 12th St.

LOULOU PETIT BISTRO & SPEAKEASY 5 to 10 p.m.

This French restaurant opened less than a month ago featuring a French menu of duck leg confit and steak frites, both of which are available for takeout. Lighter options include soups and nicoise salad.

176 Eighth Ave.

LOULOU PETIT BISTRO & SPEAKEASY

MATT BRUCK

CONCORD HILL

DA TOSCANO

CONCORD HILL

orders placed through UberEats, GrubHub and Caviar. Meal kits come with four servings of homemade lumache, a short, hollow pasta, and a quart of either Bolognese or marinara sauce.

24 Minetta Lane

SOHO DINER

MINETTA TAVERN 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday; 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday The West Village dining room now offers delivery of its classics, including foie gras, lobster fettuccine and New York strip.

113 MacDougal St. ZARO’S Visit zaro.com for delivery options The Bronx bakery is delivering birthday cakes and cookie dough for at-home baking. You also can order a donation of two dozen bagels with cream cheese to be delivered to one of three Bronx institutions: Lincoln Medical Center, the Fire Department’s Engine 60/ Ladder 17/Battalion 14, or the 40th Precinct of the NYPD. 1309 Metropolitan Ave., Bronx APRIL 13, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 19

THANK YOU T

o everyone at the frontlines of the pandemic, from health care employees to food services, words cannot begin to express our gratitude.

You selflessly take care of others, putting their needs ahead of your own. In times like these, your strength and resiliency are an inspiration to all.

CN019663.indd 1

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