Crains New York - September 24, 2012 - (Page 3)

Bavaria comes to the Bowery Hotelier to open LES brewpub with famed Munich brand Paulaner BY LISA FICKENSCHER What do Zip City, Typhoon, A.J. Gordon’s and Commonwealth have in common? They were all part of the frothy frenzy in the 1990s when brewpubs—eateries that made beer on their premises—were opening all over the city.They’re also all defunct. Making a bid to revitalize the industry is an unlikely player, Rudolf Tauscher, the former general manager of the five-star Mandarin Oriental New York hotel, where a $19 glass of champagne is the top-selling libation. Turns out the hotelier has deep roots in the hops and barley business, dating back to the 1800s when his family bought a brewery in Bavaria, Germany, which is still in operation. Now he is parlaying his family’s legacy into his own brewery on the Lower East Side at 265 and 267 Bowery, where he inked a 15year lease. The 4,000-square-foot establishment in a former restaurant-supply company space is slated to open early next year. There are plenty of reasons why the others failed. For one, “they found that the real estate is so expensive that it doesn’t make sense to make beer on the premises,” said Brooklyn Brewery co-founder Steve Hindy.“You want to be selling food and drink on every square inch of the space.” What’s more, the beer they produced was not very good. Just a handful of such local businesses remain, including Chelsea Brewing Co., which opened in the ’90s, and Mario Batali’s newer Eataly Birreria. Not even Heartland Brewery makes beer in its restaurants anymore. “I didn’t want See BAVARIA on Page 23 IN THE BOROUGHS QUEENS Unsung hospital roars back Locals dig deep for big new addition at Bayside’s St. Mary’s BY SHANE DIXON KAVANAUGH It’s no Mount Sinai Medical Center or New York-Presbyterian Hospital. In fact, few people have ever heard of St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children. But for 60 years, the hospital in Bayside, Queens, has quietly been treating some of the city’s most vulnerable pediatric patients: burn victims from the Bronx, premature babies from Staten Island and countless others. “We’ve wrapped our arms around New York’s underdogs,” said Thomas Kissane, a partner with consulting firm CCS and a longtime trustee for St. Mary’s. “In many ways, we’ve been underdogs, too.” Now, after a five-year, $114 million struggle, that is about to change. This week, the nonprofit will open a 90,000-squarefoot addition, NUMBER OF plans for which pediatric patients triumphed over a St. Mary’s serves series of daunt- each day ing setbacks. Among them were the dawn of YEAR OF the Great Reces- St. Mary’s sion just as founding by fundraising was Episcopal nuns in getting under- Manhattan way, the unexpected death of longtime Chief ANNUAL Executive Bur- operating budget ton Grebin and a lawsuit by a group of area residents seeking to block the expansion. Through it all, the hospital’s supporters in the predominantly upper-middle-class neighborhood and beyond plowed ahead. “The magnitude of support has been miraculous,” said Jeffrey Frerichs, who became St. Mary’s president two years ago. Since the hospital launched its fundraising campaign in 2008, scores of businesses big and small have helped drum up more than $33 million for the new patient pavilion—nearly three times what administrators had expected to raise from private sources. Founded in 1872 by Episcopal nuns on the West Side of Manhattan, St. Mary’s decamped for its current eight-acre parcel overlooking Little Neck Bay in the 1950s.There, it grew to become one of only a VITAL SIGNS 4K buck ennis BEER HERE: Former Mandarin Oriental GM Rudolf Tauscher has roots in the hops business. His family runs a brewery in Bavaria. 1872 $100M Real estate’s 10-figure te$t For sale: two huge $1.5 billion towers, but fates uncertain BY THERESA AGOVINO Last week, just days before final bids were due on Worldwide Plaza, a mega-office tower whose owner is seeking $1.5 billion, would-be bidders got a jolt. Another giant property, this one down on Madison Square, also officially hit the market—bearing roughly the same stratospheric price tag. Both owners are hoping to cash in on investors’ recent voracious appetite for Manhattan office towers. Stoked by the city’s relatively strong HOW TWO BUILDINGS STACK UP WORLDWIDE PLAZA Asking price: $1.5 billion Square feet: 1.9 million Number of stories: 47 Year built: 1989 11 MADISON AVE. Asking price: $1.5 billion Square feet: 2.2 million Number of stories: 30 Year built: 1932 economy and near-record-low borrowing costs, the average price of a Manhattan office building hit $661 a square foot in the first half of the year, up 33% from year-earlier levels and 50% from the low point in 2009, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc. Similarly, the number of sales rose 21%, to 25, in the first half of 2012, five times the total of the first half of 2009. The fate of these two buildings, however, will provide the first 10figure litmus test for the market in more than a year—plumbing the depths of investors’ desire for truly giant buildings, of which New York has plenty.Worldwide Plaza, at 825 Eighth Ave., is 1.9 million square feet, while 11 Madison Ave. is a hulking 2.2 million square feet. See REAL ESTATE on Page 23 See UNSUNG on Page 12 September 24, 2012 | Crain’s New York Business | 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - September 24, 2012

In the Boroughs
In the Markets
The Insider
Business People
Corporate Ladder
Small Business
Opinion
Greg David
Report: Accounting
The List
Classifieds
Real Estate Deals
New York, New York
Source Lunch
Out and About
Snaps

Crains New York - September 24, 2012