Office landlords join city stimulus

The Bloomberg administration is teaming up with the commercial real
estate sector in a measure to boost the shaken economy by keeping
entrepreneurs, including those who were laid off by finance firms, in
the city. Last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined representatives
from Trinity Real Estate and the Moinian Group to announce an office
“incubator” program that will give start-up businesses in New York
rents at deep discounts. The president of Trinity Real Estate Carl
Weisbrod, whose company is donating space for three years at 160 Varick
Street in Lower Manhattan, said the incubator program would not only
help the city’s faltering economy, but that it could also be a boost
for Trinity’s bottom line. “We hope that the companies that are
incubated here will move on, grow jobs and take space at market rents
elsewhere in this neighborhood and, particularly, within our
portfolio,” Weisbrod said. In this week’s Webcast, The Real Deal’s Jen
Benepe talks to Weisbrod, along with the president of the city’s
Economic Development Corporation, Seth Pinsky, about which start-ups
will qualify and how the program will work.

Click on the image below to watch the full Webcast.