Crains New York - June 3, 2013 - (Page 6)

NY’s biggest hotel to discontinue amenity and lay off 55; others to follow suit BY LISA FICKENSCHER The New York Hilton Midtown is the largest hotel in the city, with nearly 2,000 rooms. In August, it will earn another distinction: It will discontinue room service. The move will eliminate 55 jobs. It could also ignite an industrywide trend. Other hotels, such as the Hudson in New York and the Public in Chicago, are already nibbling at the concept, offering meals delivered in brown paper bags. It’s a cafeteria The Hilton property on Sixth Avenue, between West 53rd and West 54th streets, will open a downmarket grab-and-go restaurant this summer called Herb n’ Kitchen, a cafeteria-style eatery that will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner. The plan was announced in October as part of a larger initiative at the hotel chain, which is simplifying its food offerings at Double Tree by Hilton and Embassy Suites as well. What it didn’t mention then, however, is that Herb n’ Kitchen will 6 | Crain’s New York Business | June 3, 2013 replace the room-service operation at the midtown hotel. “Like most full-service hotels, New York Hilton Midtown has continued to see a decline in traditional room-service requests over the last several years,” said a spokesman in a statement. The Hilton Hawaiian Village was the first Hilton to eliminate room service. In October, it put away the china and linen in favor of takeout. Room service is a big moneyloser for hotels, said John Fox, senior vice president of PKF Consulting. “I don’t think anyone makes a ‘I don’t think anyone makes a profit on room service because of labor costs’ profit on room service because of its labor costs,” he said, adding, “I’m sure all the big hotels will be looking at what Hilton is doing.” And so, too, will the New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council, the union that represents the 55 work- ers and thousands of other employees who work in the room-service departments of the city’s hotels. The hotel industry is clearly testing the waters. A couple of years ago, the Grand Hyatt on East 42nd Street scaled back its room-service hours when it opened a 24-hour grab-and-go market. The Hyatt’s room service shuts down at 11 p.m. Hotelier Ian Schrager’s Chicago property, Public, delivers food in a brown paper bag that’s left outside guests’ doors. “People don’t like paying a $7 service delivery fee or waiting 45 minutes for their food or greeting a server while they’re halfdressed,” he told Crain’s last year. Breakfast-in-bed backlash? But some consumers still have an appetite for breakfast in bed. And some wondered if there would be a backlash. “Are there people who won’t stay there because it doesn’t have room service?” asked Mr. Fox. The Marriott Marquis Times Square, for one, offers room service as late as 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and until 1 a.m. the rest of the week, and it has no plans to reduce the service, said a spokeswoman for the property. “Room service is very important at breakfast time,” she said. “It is not a huge profit center, but if you are a hotel of a certain brand or category, it’s something you provide.” Ⅲ by Andrew J. Hawkins newscom Hilton ends room service in favor of grab-and-go grub THE INSIDER Bank bill ignored, Quinn lashes out C ity Council Speaker Christine Quinn last week urged the Bloomberg administration to quit dragging its feet and implement a bank-regulating bill enacted by the council over Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s veto last year. But the bill’s advocates admit they will have to wait until Mr. Bloomberg leaves office at year’s end. In a letter to Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, Ms. Quinn implored the administration to appoint a designee to the Community Investment Advisory Board, which was called for by the Responsible Banking Act of 2012. “While I understand that it can take time to select a qualified candidate to appoint to the board, it is regrettable that the Bloomberg administration has made no attempt to fulfill this legal requirement and continues to imply that doing so is not a priority any time soon,” she wrote. The bill requires banks to disclose in exhaustive detail their dealings in low-income neighborhoods to be eligible to hold the city’s money. “You would think, between the federal government and the state government, we’d have enough bank regulations,” Mr. Bloomberg said last year. “I don’t know why the City Council thinks that they have the expertise, or can really add anything other than just adding costs to banks.” A year later, he has not named anyone to the advisory board, which would oversee the data collection and analysis. A deadline for its initial report has passed. “In order to perform its functions and meet its statutory deadlines, it is imperative that the board be convened without further delay,” Ms. Quinn wrote. “To this end, I urge the Bloomberg administration to carry out its legal responsibility and immediately designate a member to the board.” Jaime Weisberg, an advocacy associate at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, which helped craft the bill, said the council has little recourse short of going to court. She said the law will likely take effect after Mr. Bloomberg’s term. Ms. Quinn’s letter serves a purpose for her mayoral campaign, in that it distances herself from Mr. Bloomberg. The council speaker’s rivals have portrayed her as too close to him. Business’s election strategy A coalition of business and real estate interests plans to spend $10 million to influence this year’s City Council races and has recruited a Barack Obama campaign veteran. Ken Strasma, a national expert on voter targeting who also worked for Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 campaign, will help manage the group’s field organization. The plan is to spend $2 million on voter identification and field targeting in 25 races. The bulk of the $10 million expenditure will go toward mailings and radio and television advertising. Organizers involved with the independent expenditure say the goal is to elect pro-development, pro-growth candidates to the council. The new group, the Jobs for New York PAC, is spearheaded by the Real Estate Board of New York, and includes unions like the Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York, UFCW Local 1500, which represents supermarket workers, and the New York City District Council of Carpenters. Their ultimate goal may be to elect candidates who straddle the line between labor and business. “It’s very important to make sure there’s a really good balance,” said Pat Purcell, political director at UFCW. REBNY attempted a similar effort in 2009, pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Independence Party, but failed to pick up many new friends in the council. Ⅲ http://www.cbre.com http://www.cbre.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - June 3, 2013

Crains New York - June 3, 2013
IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
REAL ESTATE DEALS
OPINION
GREG DAVID
FOR THE RECORD
TOP ENTREPRENEURS
CLASSIFIEDS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE COFFEE
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - June 3, 2013