What Sarah Palin
should know about
downtown mosque
PAGE 2

MEMO TO
BUSINESS:
STOP FRETTING.
THE RECOVERY
IS STRONGER
THAN YOU THINK.

GREG DAVID PAGE 11

VOL. XXVI, NO. 30 W WW. CRAINSNE WYORK. COM
JULY 26-AUGUS T 1, 2010 PRICE: $3.00

Pfizer’s growth pill
PAGE 2
A doctor picks up
the pieces at North
General Hospital
PAGE 2
Libraries book cuts
in budget, services
PAGE 3
Betting tenants will
come, rents will rise
as economy rebounds
ICK!
Manhattan’s bedbug invasion bites
Vacancies
back in
vogue with
investors
Art market’s revival
offers entrepreneurs
brush with greatness
SMALL BUSINESS, PAGE 12

BY THERESA AGOVINO

IVESL USINESS B

GOTHAM GIGS VP of toys and games? Nice work ... P. 25

DESPITE FALLING Manhattan office rents and rising vacancies, investors are snapping up buildings that until recently were shunned as undesirable: those with large swaths of empty space available now or in the near future. Increasingly, they are betting that the improving economy will spur demand for space and reignite rents.

“Risk is back,” says Dan Fasulo, a
managing director at RCA Analytics.
“Investors are willing to go further out
on the risk spectrum to get the kinds of
returns they want.”
It’s a familiar scenario, with a couple
of postrecession twists. During the
boom, investors routinely paid a premi-
um for empty space, confident they

See VACANCIES on Page 23

; ANNE FISHER on great partnerships P. 25

; MOVERS & SHAKERS Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss loves NYC, jeans and Broadway P. 26

; GAEL GREENE discovers Chelsea’s Cô Ba P. 27

Follow the stimulus money

INDEX

NEW YORK, NEW YORK __________________________ 6

THE INSIDER___________________________________________________ 8

VIEWPOINT ___________________________________________________ 10

CLASSIFIEDS ______________________________________________ 20

FOR THE RECORD ___________________________________ 22

HOT JOBS______________________________________________________ 25

EXECUTIVE MOVES_________________________________ 25

THE WEEK AHEAD___________________________________ 27

WHAT HE’S READING____________________________ 27

GET TY IMAGES

BY ADRIANNE PASQUARELLI MOVE OVER, DRACULA. There’s a new bloodsucker in town. Just ask lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret. Earlier this month, after news reports surfaced of a bedbug infes- tation at a downtown retailer, the Ohio-based company proactively checked its 10 Manhattan sites and found what officials described as “isolated areas that may have been impacted.” It closed one midtown store for several hours and discarded con- taminated inventory. Such measures cost a bundle, but Victoria’s Secret can at least ake comfort in the fact that it’s in good company. “This summer alone, we’ve treated about 20 stores,” says Diego Vasquez, gener- al manager at West Village-based exterminator EcoChoice. “Last year, it was most- stores, offices with costs of battling the creepy critters. Is no place safe? See ICK! on Page 23
It’s half-spent, and 77%
covers operating costs,
not shovel-ready stuff

BUGGED OUT:
“Bedbugs scare people,”
says one pest-control
expert. “Stores don’t
want to lose business.”
BY JEREMY SMERD

REPORT REAL ESTATE

A GAGGLE of newly minted police officers stood on a subway platform in Grand Central Terminal last week,gig-gling as if they had just beaten a bad rap. In a sense, they had. Until federal stimulus funds were awarded, the city wouldn’t have had money to pay their salaries. But thanks to $39.5 million from Washington, D.C., to beef up New York’s public-transit security, 104 cadets graduated July 1 and were working in the subways a week later.