CRAINSNEWYORK.COM I AUGUST 21, 2023
SL Green navigates a new real estate turmoil Midtown firm battles high vacancy rates, sluggish sales market By C. J. Hughes
BUCK ENNIS
At first blush, SL Green Realty Corp., New York’s largest owner of office space, seems to be having a good summer. The company’s stock price has surged more than 70% from its post-Covid spring low, and the $1 billion sale in June of a stake in 245 Park Ave. to a Japanese investor valued the Midtown tower within a hair of its prepan- CEO Marc Holliday demic worth. But SL Green’s shares are still trading at prices more than 60% less than what they were before Covid’s onslaught, suggesting there’s still a long road until full recovery. And as hybrid work persists, the company’s occupancy rate slid to 89.8% in the second quarter from 90.2% in the winter, undermining predictions by executives that the worst of the office collapse was over. The next few months, then, seem to represent a critical crossroads for the company,
NY’S CANNABIS MARKET COULD BE WORTH $7.5B—
MOST OF IT ILLEGAL The unregulated market is expected to generate $5.4 billion, compared to $2 billion in legal sales this year | By Aaron Elstein This is what the legal weed rollout had hoped to avoid. When the state Legislature legalized recreational marijuana two years ago and dramatically reduced penalties for illegal sales, the intent was to create a network of carefully located dispensaries to be safely run by people who had been incarcerated for selling weed in the past. Instead, the smell of weed is quite literally in the air all over the city, and
BY THE NUMBERS
2021
The year the state of New York legalized recreational marijuana
the government isn’t collecting much tax revenue from it. New York state’s marijuana marketplace could be worth $7.5 billion, Washington research firm New Frontier Data estimates. But most sales take place within the thousands of unlicensed bodegas, delis and other retailers in the city selling flower, edibles and extracts. Sales at licensed dispensaries statewide trickled in at $33 million
in the first half of the year, according to the state Cannabis Control Board. Tax revenue was coming in at $3.3 million a month through mid-May, according to a study by industry group Coalition for Access to Safe and Regulated Cannabis; the Hochul administration had projected $4.7 million. The five boroughs now have more than 10 times the number of shops selling marijuana than Amsterdam, the global capital of cannabis consumption ever since that city decriminalized casual pot smoking in 1976. New York City has at least three times more cannabis shops than all of the Netherlands, with
See SL GREEN on Page 14 1 VANDERBILT
BUCK ENNIS
Although weed paraphernalia like this is legal to sell, some shops are going beyond that to illegally sell the drug itself. | BUCK ENNIS
See CANNABIS on Page 26
VOL. 39, NO. 29 l COPYRIGHT 2023 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SPOTLIGHT Matriark addresses the food-waste problem by turning surplus and scraps into sauces and soups. PAGE 27
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2023 CRAIN’S NOTABLE LEADERS IN ACCOUNTING, TAX & AUDIT
CHASING GIANTS CurbWaste gives trash haulers a cloud platform to manage their operations.
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