YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Biederman

lines on the record: 103
first: 2016-01-23
most recent: 2016-01-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It's yours. So we got a lot of calls. We do some marketing, but not much. We mainly get incoming inquiries from people who've visited our places.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting the competition is to do parks the traditional way with landscape architects and architects. And that's not us. We have a really narrow niche, and there are a couple of economic consulting firms that say they do what we do, but they've kind of been derivatives. But it's a very narrow niche, which is the disadvantage, but the great thing is we created the field.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They have something called the urban redevelopment agency, which is very successful, and I've been on their advisory panel once or twice. And basically, though, our work is in North America. I've done a fair amount of work in Toronto now.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I haven't made a big thing of it. There are five countries where I've done some advising. The UK, Singapore, Finland, Israel, and Canada.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of times aside. We're six acres. People always throw up possibilities. Trafalgar Square, I say Trafalgar Square is empty compared to us. Really?”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Six million different visits and not six million different individuals, but there are six million visits a year. It's the most crowded per acre public space in the world.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The way Brian Park does. Brian Park has a hugely successful Wi Fi thing, and they're hard to set up. Everybody says they have Wi Fi, but half the time doesn't work very well. But the one in Newark really is working well. And we worked well with the government of Mayor Booker, Mayor Baraka has continued it. He's been great. He's visited the park three times to read his poetry and play chess and the like. The Wi-Fi system was backed by the city, and we extended beyond the park. And now you've got free Wi-Fi in that vicinity. Really? In Newark.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're actually the Newark residents who are using it are actually better for us because they'll spend a little more time there, they're a little more patient, they're a little less on their iPhones. And it's been a wonderful thing to see the social fabric of the park change. We put a restaurant, a tiny restaurant in that sells burgers pretty inexpensively, and that was hard to arrange.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The ones we always point to that are really finished are Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Newark. And Pittsburgh, what used to be a parking lot next to the Cathedral of Learning was one of our early parks. It's called Shenley Plaza. Terrific improvement. And Pittsburgh's a great city to work in, and there's a lot of good stuff out there. And Newark.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The low line possibility. The low line. Yeah. They're trying to model after the high line, and it's kind of clever, but it is underground. It doesn't have the views that the highline is. It's a little darker. Yes, I don't know much about it, but they did call to ask some questions. It's nice to”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thank you. Jamestown, the owner adjacent, paid me a little bit of money to advise Rob Hammond, who's one of the founders of Friends of the Highline, and he listened to what we said. He was a good client. I only had a minor role, but they did go for some of the stuff that we did in Brian Paul.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they'd already started, to be fair, before we got there. It's a very good, and I'll give Governor Cuomo some credit, it's a very good state agency, Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation, which run by smart people, and they like the idea of the programming, and they've really energized the area with not so much money of the taxpayers as some of the other elements of Buffalo. And you've now got a public space with concerts and food and beverage and skating rink that's really a credit to downtown Buffalo. And there's development that's been generated around it, partly by the space, partly just by good buffalo developers like Benderson and the owners of the Buffalo Sabres doing major things. If you haven't been in Buffalo a while, it's worth looking at. There's real progress there.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Over the border? The absence of unions has something to do with that. Sure, sure. So this project soup to nuts, including the park, was $103 million. I guarantee you in the Northeast it would have been half a billion at least and wouldn't have happened either. But if it had happened, it would have been half a billion.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Essentially, it's currently being thought of in many other cities. It's covering the highways so that the noise of an interstate does not ruin the adjacent neighborhoods in a city. Atlanta's considering it now, LA, I don't think LA is going to get there because the costs are going to be too high. And the great thing about Texas is construction costs are incredibly reasonable. Why is that?”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kept the highway and we did a beautiful park with a ton of activity in it. There's some very wealthy people and public-spirited people in Dallas. Jody Grant was the head with his wife, Sheila, and they made a major difference by making a deal with the mayor that the private sector would essentially finance the park and a little bit more if the state of Texas and the city financed a little federal help from federal funds did the cap. So it was a good idea.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The pension deals are so unsustainable in states like New Jersey and Illinois that those states are constantly threatened with bankruptcy. So you can't do that if you're a private operator of a public space.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it would be heavy in, you talk about minimum wage changes, the employees who are the porters would be making $25 or $30 an hour. That's not the market. So you're nice to your people and you're generous with them, but you can't pay them. You can't overpay.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On the corner Terrific HSBC is a sponsor. Southwest Airlines has naming rights to a kiosk there. And we've had events from, well, I'll get to that later. The sponsorships alone are about $5 million. The events we have, introducing products. Everybody from Starbucks to Microsoft to T-Mobile has introduced products in Bryant Park because of its prominence. It doesn't take much time and it's rare, but when they do it, we make them pay for it. That's another million and a half. And then there's a surrounding business improvement district we mentioned that's about a million and a half also. And then dribs and drebs of other things. We do some merchandising not very successfully. Total of about $12 million in revenue. So that's how we got to that Disney Rock Center and Rouse number. So if this wasn't...”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was just neglect. But in the cases where government does something anew, they tend to make deals that are above market on the employee side. And then there are revenue sources that they could be collecting from that because it's not a for-profit company, nobody pays attention to. Most governments have a revenue source or two, mostly taxes and then some fines. But the private sector looks for every dollar it can in many different ways. So Brian Park has five different revenue sources. What are they? We collect from the restaurants and kiosks in the park over $3 million a year in rent. We have sponsors of some of our more prominent activities like the skating rink in Winter, Bank of America has been fabulous sponsor for three years.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The faults of government in running services beside Parks, but Parks is part of it, is they tend to spend and undercollect, so the profit and loss statement comes out as skew, therefore forcing them to assess people who are the taxpayers a lot more than they might otherwise have to.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's right. And it's not a dictatorship, I have to answer to a board. But after 35 years of doing this, they tend to concede that I know what I'm doing, so I get a lot of freedom to run the thing the way I want.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pub It's good to get a group together. If it has to be nonprofits, so be it. But the group should have property owners who have a real stake, some public officials can't be a majority of them because otherwise you're off to the races with the way governments always operate it. And then other people who are interested, tenants are a good group to include. So it gives you access to talent.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The restroom. We had to convince women that we had a public restroom they could trust. So the first thing you see when you go through the door is the bouquet of flowers. And we can see women saying, well, they're not going to do that if this is going to be a crummy place to go. So that was a lot of psychology.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, hotels, whatever. We try to be as good as the ones in the plaza and the St. Regis, and we kind of send people up there. They're literally bouquets.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the city, we really pride ourselves on it, and it's hard to do. We learned a lot about restrooms. In my MBA class, I'm the only one who was a minor in restroom management, I think. Nobody else was interested in that.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You don't want to do this, but you could theoretically have a busy park with relatively cruddy surfaces and the like. The public notices the activities more than they notice the appointments, but obviously we try to be exquisite in the physical way also by paying attention to every detail. No litter, no graffiti, washing everything, having exceptionally good public restrooms, which is a real failure.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly right. Well said, it's a combination of things that will make audiences arrive not only at peak times like lunch and after work, but also in between. So in Brian Park, you can do about 40 free things. And the park we have in Dallas and the park we're doing in Newark, you can learn to knit, you can learn a language, you can listen to authors push their book, you can listen to business talks. This is all spread throughout the park. That's what should drive the design and the turnaround, not spending a lot of money on a fancy architect. There are just too many cases where fancy LAs or landscape architects or architects have been paid to make a great space and then the space opens and nobody comes. Programming is what drives people to come.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're only incidentally not for profits. So there are numerous parts. The traditional way of fixing or creating parks is higher landscape architect come up with some ideas that are design only and then spend a lot of money and open it and hope people show up.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, my firm is a for profit company. Which is the not redevelopment. Brian Park in 34th Street are run as not-for-profits, but with private sector bias.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we were the first to do it on a large scale basis. And my firm BRV actually does create them and doctor them. It's a smaller product.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're going to take it national. I was lucky. I had another product in Manhattan which is taking over whole neighborhoods through what are known as business improvement districts. EI.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I sorry to interrupt. As a job creator, these projects are enormous. Bryant Park had one and a half jobs when we took it over. Now between the restaurants, kiosks, the programming we do there, it's about a thousand jobs. Really? And the park we're doing in Newark, we have the same aspirations for that to create employment in a city like Newark that really needs it.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. Uptown Dallas to the arts district, and it's a huge economic generator, both for the private owners and then the city benefits from this. We did an assessment last year, $33 million in real estate taxes added to the city at Bryant Park just for the $33 adjacent properties to say nothing of the guys who are a block away who are all arguing, you know, come here because Bryant Park is a block away. So it's probably a nine figure as the added real estate taxes the city's collecting as a result of Brian Park.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To the building. And right now in Dallas, we did a park Clyde Warren Park with the help of a bunch of Dallas billionaires. It's very successful. And there's a real estate boom around it. It's a cap park over a formerly open highway between that divided”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More money. Hey, you guys should be putting more cash in. I told the story my next salary negotiation to the other board members. And I said, why are you fighting me?”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's assume it's about a 20 buck premium for Brian Park being this good. He said, I think that's modest, but every square foot of our million three square feet went up in value over a five to 10 year period by $20 as a result of your efforts. And he said that goes straight to the bottom line, it doesn't cost more to collect more rent. So he did the math for me. $20 million times 1.3 million. $26 million, and then he said the cap rate, I think. Kanji. The cap rate at the time was 5%. So he said, okay, so 26 divided by 0.05, 520 million dollars. He said, how much have we invested in this thing? I said, well, you guys gave a garden and you've been part of our business improvement district. So about a million bucks. He said, so 520x. He said, can I tell you we've never had a 520x experience? Did you tap them”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was a real eye-opener. The guys who owned the Grace Building initially sold it to TriZekhan, which then sold it to Brookfield. Very nice guy. He sat me down. He said, let me show you how much money you made this family. He said, really?”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good ideas, powerless people, 25%, bad ideas, powerful people, 25%. So he said, this is a fabulous idea. Your plan is great. The Rockefellers are behind it. So are the real estate owners. This is going to happen. Don't get discouraged. Stop whining and go back to work. I needed that PEP talk after six years of facing the public process.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The answers weren't that hard to figure out, but the politics were brutal. In fact, there was a point at which I considered giving up after six years, and I met a very bright land use lawyer, Steve Lefkowitz, on a train, and I said I was discouraged. He said, why are you discouraged? Is this going to happen? I said, what makes you think it's going to happen? They're fighting me at every turn. He said, there are four types of projects, and they fit on a matrix neatly, something I've never gotten. I use it all the time. There are dumb projects and smart projects, good ideas, bad ideas. And then there are projects backed by powerful people and projects backed by powerless people. So he said, you can imagine how often bad ideas backed by powerless people happen. They almost never get adopted. He said...”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Running this almost on the scale that Disney, Rouse, and Rock Center had suggested. And then we've rolled that out across the country. But in New York, it was hard. Blue State political processes are thick to be kind. And my chairman at the time said somebody asked him about approvals. He said, everybody in the western hemisphere and his brother has had to approve this twice. And that's why it took six years”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We invented something called programming, which is an urban parks you can't really afford Barry to let segments of the park be isolated. It's not Yosemite National Park where you don't need to program. Despite the reduction in New York City's crime rate, which we were a key part of, there are a lot of idiots walking around who will do bad things, scare women out of the park and whatever. So we invented programming, and if you walk into a park that either that one or the one we did in Dallas, the one we did in Newark, you will see a lot of stuff going on that brings people into the park. And the more people who are there, the safer it gets. Sure. The female ratios go up, which is a key indicator of Park success. So we had that. We decided to do some food and beverage, which had never been in the park. Restaurants and kiosks, an elaborate budget with multiple revenue sources that would allow us to really do an excellent job.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Parkour just were against. There were 1,500 parks in New York at the time, and the parks commissioner said a good thing at one point. He said, you know, they don't all have to be managed in the same cookie-cutter way. Let's try and experiment in one of them, later three, because I took over two other parks in New York. But that contingent from the preservation world wanted them all to be managed the same way, which was government in charge and government both spending and collecting methods, managing the profit and loss statement, which is not a good recipe for success.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody leaped in and said the idea of a privately managed space and a program space was a bad idea. Many of them had never been in Bryant Park, but the preservation movement jumped in with both feet to oppose me.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“or the city of New York, and I said, You know the answer to that. So he said, so 60 to 1 plus a multiplier of two or three. So 180 to 1 is the difference in effort going into those A properties versus Brian Park, a public property. And we were off trying to assemble a massive budget to allow us to do all the great things we wanted to do for the public in New York City.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And every detail exquisite. It's really a wonderful thing. They never decided to go on in the business. So I went to all three companies and said, I'd like you, here's a deal. You can run a park in New York City. We're going to take it away from the drug guys. You guys will be our agent. I represent the Rockefellers in New York Public Library and the surrounding real estate owners. Let's get to it. And they all said, thank you very much. We have better things to do than fight with drug sellers in New York City. But on the way out, I got some useful information, which is I asked them how much did they think it would take to run a place like this well. They said all of them. About a million dollars an acre. So we needed $6 million. It's a six-acre park. My chairman was Andrew High School of Time Inc. And he said, how much is the city spending now, by the way? I said, about $100,000 generously. And he said, okay, $6 million to a hundred thousand dollars offset. And by the way, who's spending the money better, Rock Center and Rouse and Disney?”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even though I was young, I said you got to have models for such a thing. So the best models I found were actually something Todd to the Rockefellers, Rockefeller Center, Disney, and Rouse. Rouse had projects that were turning around cities. Disney had done a fabulous job in their parks, and I think a celebration.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We need to just hire somebody to fix this. We don't know what to do, but we can't have the library be surrounded by drug markets and killings and muggings and rapes. So there was a competition. I got the job and then had no secretary, nobody was in an abandoned office building because I didn't want to spend the Rockefellers money on rent. And came up with a plan, and the plan was a 90 day labor, but the politics were a six-year labor. It was really brutal.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When David Rockefeller, the world's most effective human being for the last hundred years, has been a long, goes back to his office from the trustees meeting and says to the guy who ran the Brothers Fund.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The only reason I got introduced to the Rockefellers is Larry Cudlow decided to resign as treasurer of a nonprofit development corporation on West 42nd Street, 42nd Street Development Corporation. They needed a replacement. The guy who ran that, Fred Papper, knew me. He said, you can do this job. And by the way, a side benefit is every board meeting, Jackie Onassis is present. You'll get to know her. So I said, sounds good, no pay, I assume. He said yes. I was 25 years old. He suggested me to the Rockefellers for Brian Park because they were looking for somebody who might be a candidate to somehow turn around this miss.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Bryant Park. Very lucky for me. She says, Young man, he's probably 74 at the time. We need to do something about this misery. There are rough ends outside. They just insulted me. Let's fix this. Well, let me show you.”
2016-01-23 · Masters in Business · Interview With Dan Biederman: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source