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Gottie Wild, Great to see you. We're here in Hudson Yards at HSBC's new trading floor, shiny and new. But it really does send another message about Wall Street's ambition in New York. And I suppose there is the battle against Miami. But what do you think it says to the global community. I buy Hudson Yards and New York Finance.
Well, no contest with Miami. Let's start there.
But what it says really is that New York is constantly reinventing itself and Hudson Yards represents more than twelve million square feet of new office space built in New York in the last seven years, and it's basically renting like hotcakes at the highest commercial rents we've ever had, and the space is fantastic. Part of the motivation for that is that a lot of our older real estate
needed to be rebuilt and so companies have relocated. But it also is because remote work has created a phenomenon where people want to come to a great place to work and getting people back to the office. Part of the secret sauce is having a place like Hudson Yards and a trading floor like the one you see here.
And that's essentially what Michael just said. He's the HSBC CEO. He doesn't want to dictate people coming back. He wants people to come back to nucleus like this. But if I look at the commercial property empty spaces in New York that is at a record high, Katy. And the question is is the city doing enough to regenerate those properties, either for homes or regeneration full stop.
Well, the state and city together just in the last month, has passed new legislation that creates the proper zoning and tax incentives for the conversion of our older commercial buildings to residential use. And downtown we saw that after nine to eleven, Remember everybody thought New York was going to be deserted, and with a very short period of time with incentives for how in conversion, it became the fastest growing residential community in the country.
Do you think we can replicate that?
Absolutely?
So we're not on a doom loop.
No, quite the contrary.
I mean in New York, it really takes because property values are so strong here and the demand is so high that it takes a crisis to kind of free things up. And reinvent yourself. And that's what's exactly going on. So it's the opposite of a doom move. It's really the next plateau for the next era of New York's growth and prosperity.
And here's the thing. Is a global city and it is it is destination number one for competal markers. But if we look at the two burning issues at a global level, one is affordability of heising. It's not just a New York problem. It's a global problem with cities and safety. I want to square away safety. The National Guard are on the subway. There's more police on the subway. Do you look at that as a reassurance or is actually things are getting pretty out of control here.
We're still in recovery from the pandemic in terms of the subway's, subdy safeway safety. During the pandemic, when people were not traveling to work, when we had a lockdown, we had a period of time where there was a lot of takeover of the subways by what might say undesirable elements. We're losing a lot of money.
Through fair evasion.
Folks are moving into the subway and they're finding some opportunities for crime, and so.
We need police in the subways.
We've got a great programs in the case of people who are mentally ill who have moved into the subways. You know a lot of patients and prisoners were moved out of institutions during the COVID to prevent infection, and we've ended up they ended up many of them in the subways.
So we are really working hard.
The MTA has made this a top priority, and in fact, last month's subway subway crime was down substantially, so we're in the right direction on that.
What does the city say when Mayor Adams will be here a little bit later on, I'm just wondering what you're gonna say to him in terms off does he need to do more on bail reform. I know there's political obstacles in Albany to this. You're the voice of this city. What are you going to say to him?
Just to be clear, the state, not the city, is in charge of the laws controlling criminal justice. So Mayor Adams can as an advocate for stronger enforcement for criminal justice reform. But right now bail reform is really not so much of an issue. We've got issues in what's called discovery laws that were reformed that make it very difficult for the prosecutors, for the district attorneys to bring
a case. So we've seen dismissal of cases go up fifty percent on technical grounds because of the laws, and that's where the challenge is. And I think we're going to make sure that something is done about that in the legislature next year to try and get that fixed.
But it is a small course correction.
We actually have a very balance criminal justice system, and we're working hard to make sure that we enforce it.
The second issue is housing. Ninety five percent of New York's housing is technically unaffordable for workers on average wages. So let's talk about big New York, not the top one percent. What more, there's no quick fix on this. What more can New York and the city do in this regard converting older premises to housing? What are you advocation?
Once again, it took a little extra time, like two years, but we have now past legislation which creates a new housing Production program, which provides for, as we mentioned before, the conversion of older commercial buildings to residential. It provides for upgrading illegal basement apartments so that they're safe and sanitary. It increases the zoning allowances so that higher density housing, more units can be built. We are on track to
address our housing problem. As you say, there is a leg time, but we're definitely on track.
It is top priority.
We want that young talent to be able to move to New York and not have to live five to an apartment, so we're working hard on that issue.
Do you think they're moving fast enough and hard enough.
I think they're moving as fast as they can.
Housing is tends to be an issue that is complicated because you have tenants rights versus landlord rights versus development rights, so it's a complicated issue.
I'd love to get your opinion.
We're going into full electioneering mode between now and November. What is the sentiment, what is the partnership talking about it in terms of the upcoming presidential election, highest risk and host opportunity.
Well, I would say the upcoming presidential election. We're a little worried that all of president ex president Trump's criminal trials have been brought in New York, or several of them, so that you know, we're concerned that if he's elected, he not take it out on New York fully because he's a queen's boy from New York.
He won't and I hope not. I'm just saying that's a worry go to York.
But and then on the on the on the upside, our New York economy is doing well. We're driving the national economy in a positive way. And I want to say that we're the capital of finance because companies like HSBC, who are global giants, a couple centuries of global giants have chosen to make a commitment to New York, to move into a place like Hudson Yards, to invest here,
and they're very committed here. So that's really important to keeping us a global financial capital, regardless of who's president.
What's the talk in the partnership like Jamie Diamond going to Washington?
Would you be would you be all cheering that on? Is there?
Is there? Is there a discussion Aby domald Well.
We certainly don't want him to leave before his new building opens on Park Avenar because that's a billion dollar, no, a multi billion dollar investment in New York City and we want to see JP Morgan safely ensconced in their new build. So but we could do worse as our next Treasury secretary.
Thank you very much Kathy for joining me on Bloomberg today.
Thank you for having me on