One of the great things about operating a 17MM sf commercial property portfolio spread throughout 17 states across the country is the opportunity to work with numerous commercial property management companies in different locales. Every location is different; each property manager has a different personality and their own way of doing things. And though no one site is alike, we’ve learned that there are always common qualities with the property management companies we work with.
The first quality we look for with any commercial property manager is the ability to follow up on a consistent basis. Follow up Follow up Follow Up is an incredibly important mantra…from both an owner’s and tenant’s perspective. As an asset manager, property manager and owner, we expect our property management team to keep us updated on property conditions at all times and providing keen insight into how/where we spend our money.
We also expect the property manager to maintain a good relationship with tenants which requires strong communication skills. In a market such as this, tenant retention is critical to the financial health of a property and we rely on the property management team to communicate efficiently and effectively on our behalf, keeping tenants content with their space while managing their short/long term expectations.
Here are a few other qualities we deem important to being a successful property manager:
- Great Attention to Details & Organization
- Knowledge of Local Ordinances and State Laws
- Comprehension of General Construction Knowledge and Building Standards
- Calm, Assertive Personality, Must Be Sociable
- Strong Sense of Duty and Commitment
We understand that being a property manager is not easy, far from it in fact. Being that we are property managers as well as work with numerous property management companies throughout the country, for all those property managers out there, THANK YOU for all that you do.
Sorry, gotta run, have a roof leak to deal with…
When I moved to Dumbo in 2007, my wife and I were sad to leave the city, but excited to be part of a blossoming neighborhood that seemed to be a hidden gem in Brooklyn for a long time. The first day we moved into our 10th floor apt, we were ecstatic to stand in the middle of our living room looking north just over the East River and then east with open views and lots of light. I don’t think we had any natural light in our old apt on 22nd St…
The open views to the east were preserved, we thought, because the neighborhood had been landmarked, but more importantly, there was a full block-wide parking lot owned and operated by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, long time residents in the hood with a large presence. Why would they ever leave? We thought we’d never have to worry about losing these views.
Now, this 3.1 acre lot on across the street at 85 Jay and 34 other beautiful properties throughout Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights are being sold by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who own one of the most sought after real estate portfolios in Brooklyn and Manhattan valued at over $1 billion. After years of acquiring these properties, it’s looking like the Jehovah’s Witnesses have decided to sell and hoof it upstate where they can build a brand new campus over 250 acres of land. As of now, the Witnesses have put eight Brooklyn Heights properties on the block—ranging from a carriage house to a seven-story apartment building, with a total of 58,000 square feet—with an asking price of $37.25 million.
Click here to the view the portfolio in its entirety.
There are plenty of mixed emotions that come with this news, from the developers and investors who are salivating over new development opportunities, to city officials who envision new schools, senior housing and nonprofit businesses returning to the city tax roll, and skeptical residents like me who are not sure what this means in the long term. After all, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are great neighbors, they are always cordial and easy going, take great care of their properties (note to local property management cos. in the area) and provide a very skilled workforce with carpenters, stonemasons and plumbers used by many throughout the surrounding neighborhoods.
On the positive side, numerous retail opportunities should arise paving the way for new restaurants, retail stores and groceries (WHOLE FOODS ARE YOU READING THIS?!). Also, it is quite possible that the sale of some of these properties could help fund the new Brooklyn Bridge Park’s long term plans which have yet to be finalized.
Yet, on the negative side, will the residential conversion or development of new properties overpopulate the Heights and Dumbo overall? Williamsburg, though still a prime spot for hipsters and young families, is now burdened with too much residential development, a ton of shadow inventory and a pure lack of pipeline commuter transportation to and from the city. The F-train is already a pain in the you-know-what, this will not help.
So, long story short, this is definitely exciting news for Brooklyn. The good or bad news, depending on your take of things, is that it will take years to unfold. And who knows, maybe they won’t sell off everything, nothing is final and they have not decided outright just yet.
And as for me, I’d prefer to keep my natural light and views a bit longer!
New York City’s Leftfield Pictures will relocate to 24,000 sf on West 34th Street, in “app.town,” as Coldwell Banker Commercial Hunter Realty has dubbed the neighborhood now teeming with technology firms.
The producers of such television shows as Bridal Bootcamp, Pawn Stars and What Not to Wear are relocating their production, post-production, casting and development groups from 545 Eighth Avenue, where it had 16,000 sf offices, to expanded digs at 460 West 34th Street.
“Rents are less as you go farther west,” said Neil Murray, of Coldwell Banker Commercial Hunter Realty, who described the space as “cost-effective while offering high ceilings, warehouse sort of space and open floor plans.”
Boasting tech properties like Google’s 111 Eighth Avenue and the office of Oxygen Media, the area has sprouted countless media, tech and entertainment companies while preserving its tech start-up spirit.
“We’re creating a tech community,” said Mr. Murray.
This is a continuing trend for CBC Hunter Realty. They are developing a strong reputation with local tech companies. Their knowledge of these types of companies and how they operate have made them the “go-to” experts in the field.
99 Lafayette Drive is an industrial flex building situated in Syosset, NY, a prime Nassau County location for both office and industrial tenants.
Located just off of Jericho Turnpike approximately two and a half miles from the Long Island Expressway, 99 Lafayette Drive features industrial flex suites starting from 12,783 sf to over 48,000 sf. New parking lot repairs were recently approved and have begun onsite which will vastly improve traffic flow throughout the property for all types of tenants.
All suites have loading docks and drive-in ramps, adequate power requirements, ceiling heights ranging from 18’ to 24’ high, gas heat and are fully sprinklered. Lease rates start from $8.00 psf gross.
Contact Jay Silver at 516.294.9700 or jay@cbcrealta.com to learn more about our available commercial property listings.
Barry Pincus, President of CBC Phoenix Asset Management, has been the owner’s representative for 5600 Fishers Lane in Parklawn, MD for almost ten years. The property consists of two parking lots and a 1,300,000 sf single-tenanted office building, that has been entirely occupied by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Barry was initially brought on to help ownership through the acquisition process and has since played an integral role toward the redevelopment plan which had been in the works for several years. The Landlord entered into a joint venture with DC giant JBG Companies, a strategic partner with grass roots in the DC market and a well known local developer. Together, they helped secure and finalize lease negotiations with HHS that resulted in a 15 year renewal. This paved the way for the partnership to work on the development and construction of a new building on one of the properties parking lots.
One of the great things about being the owner’s representative for a project like this is the opportunity to oversee the evolution of the property’s development. Being involved with all of the major aspects of the asset, Barry has seen it all with this one in particular. “Our initial focus after acquisition was renewing the lease for HHS and determining the next step for the development of the property as a whole for its highest and best use.” says Barry. “We did a joint venture with the JGB Companies, a renowned developer in the area, and together we have renewed HHS for 15 years, as well as make our vision for the property become a reality.”
As part of the lease renewal, ownership agreed to completely renovate the building and transform it into a sustainable, Class A trophy office building which should be completed in about five years. The 18-story building will undergo a complete modernization including a curtain wall re-skin, all new building systems, and the introduction of a 14-story atrium. New cores will be built within the atrium to provide the facility with a wide-open floor plan within a 65-foot wide office building to afford direct access to natural light for nearly 100 percent of the office space. The facility is anticipated to attain LEED Gold status.
JBG will oversee, with our assistance, the renovation of the building as well as the construction and development of the new building across the street. JBG already has procured the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as the tenant for the new building which is in the predevelopment phase focusing on planning and design concepts. The new development is about 500,000 sf and should take four to five years to complete.
We’ll keep you posted as the project moves forward!
Commercial real estate veteran and expert, Jay Silver, has joined Coldwell Banker Commercial REalta Group as Vice President of Leasing. Based in Garden City, Jay will serve as the lead broker for one of the largest commercial real estate portfolios in Long Island, comprising of more than 3.6 million square feet of industrial, office, retail, warehouse and R&D properties throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties.
“I’m thrilled to be part of this new venture with CBC REalta Group and the Long Island Industrial team,” said Jay. “It’s an exciting opportunity to be part of a growing company with such a great presence on Long Island. With my experience in the Long Island marketplace and keen insight into how both landlords and tenants operate, we are building a full service commercial real estate platform with strong ties to the community.”
Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Jay is a 22-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry specializing in landlord representation. He began his career at Studley and spent the last 13 years at Real Estate Strategies, Ltd., based in Long Island. Jay has represented an impressive array of clients including New York State, Southern Wine and Spirits, John Hancock, FEGS, Celino and Barnes, Israeloff and Trattner, and Harrison Leifer DiMarco. His leasing agencies include the marketing, leasing and sale of 560 Broadhollow Road, Melville, NY and 1025 Old Country Road, Westbury, NY where he was responsible for 150,000 square feet of new leases for the property.
Contact Jay to learn more about the Long Island Industrial portfolio!
There seem to be whispers in the marketplace that the tide may be turning, though slowly and with an unclear time frame, but the general feeling is that activity in the industrial sector may be ready to make its comeback.
Developers, investors, and REITS are starting to hedge their bets on industrial real estate, following signs that consumers are starting to spend again. Sales volume for industrial assets have increased by almost three times the amount since last year at the same time, and a number of commercial real estate firms have validated these stats (Thanks CBC, C&W, JLL, CBRE, etc!).
The core product that investors are focusing on is the single-tenant, net lease industrial warehouse. In this year alone, CoStar is reporting that over 30,000 single-tenant sales valued at $29.2 billion have taken place. Another reason for this positive outlook has to do with supply and demand. There has been hardly any new construction development during the last few years so as industrial space gets leased, supply goes down (the vacancy rate has fallen for three straight quarters). Add all these factors together and perhaps a greener pasture is around the corner?
The industrial sector is often the leader in turning around a weak commercial real estate market. Companies see increased consumer demand as a sign to increase production and inventory storage as a first step. Ideally, office expansion and company growth follows. This is becoming more apparent in the tri-state area where companies are considering leasing large warehouse and/or building new sites. The J.G. Petrucci Company is building a 570,000 sf industrial warehouse in Edison, NJ without the comfort of a tenant signed up for the space. This is one of the first new spec building to be commissioned since the recession began.
Other larger companies such as Blackstone, Clarion Partners, Terreno Realty Corporation, Morgan Stanley, the Cabot Group, Matrix Development Group and CenterPoint Properties are increasing the size of their industrial portfolios and banking on the fact that this sector will indeed lead the way to a stronger commercial real estate market.
In New York and New Jersey, ports may play a large role in this turnaround. The Panama Canal is on track to be widened by 2014. Valued at $5.25 billion dollars, the project will allow large cargo ships that currently anchor on the west coast and travel roadside to move goods to the East Coast to sail directly to New York or New Jersey. This should provide some great business opportunities for both states.
There are still concerns within the marketplace overall. Big business seems to be rebounding in select markets, but smaller, entrepreneurial businesses in between 10,000-50,000 sf are still struggling. Inconsistency in the financial markets and lack of sustained job growth has many concerned that recovery will be a slow process.
But with everything, you have to start somewhere, and perhaps this is the beginning to a slow and steady recovery? I’ll take my glass half-full, please.
Coldwell Banker Commercial Phoenix Asset Management, a member of the REalta Group, has joined forces with Long Island Industrial, LLC, one of New York’s leading real estate investment, management and development firms, to asset manage one of the largest commercial property portfolios in Long Island. The portfolio is comprised of more than 3.6 million square feet of industrial, office, retail, warehouse and research & development assets throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties.
“We are excited to be building upon a long-standing relationship with the Long Island Industrial team, working together to operate this significant portfolio,” points out Brad Pincus, Vice President of CBC Phoenix Asset Management. “The assets will benefit from our ability to leverage our combined expertise, along with connecting our local relationships with the brokerage community, tenants, contractors and vendors.”
The complete Long Island portfolio consists of 36 properties, with a tenant list that includes several Fortune 500 companies. The Nassau County portion of the portfolio has 13 properties, totaling 1.5 million square feet with building sizes ranging from 50,000- to 238,000 square feet. The balance of the portfolio in Suffolk County includes 23 properties, encompassing more than 2.1 million square feet with buildings ranging in size from 22,000- to 180,000 square feet.
If you had asked me about using Twitter or Facebook for business at the beginning of the year, I probably would have responded with some Seinfeld reference like “I tried Twitter…yada yada yada…and my computer blew up.” I was still skeptical about how much these social media machines could actually help promote our company and it seemed like too much work for too little of a return. Well, months later with hundreds of tweets behind me and lots of followers, along with a new Facebook fan page, YouTube and LinkedIn pages – oh, and a WordPress blog, — I am a believer!
I have observed the rapid evolution of the simple media plan as it increasingly focuses more on online advertising and search engine optimization/marketing techniques as more efficient uses of marketing dollars. Even so, nothing is full proof and it’s not easy to commit marketing dollars to online initiatives still very much young in their application and evaluation.
It’s no coincidence that the emergence of social media has helped bridge the gap between what companies want to spend and what they can actually spend on brand awareness. But putting a consistent effort into such mediums as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and blogging (like this!) produces tangible results over time and the best thing about it is it’s FREE!
Let’s face it, we live in a “Google does as Google wants” world. We use it for just about everything, from researching a prospective client you just met to creating tonight’s dinner recipe. Everyone company vies to be ranked on that first Google search page, and sometimes it seems daunting to compete with major conglomerates that have limitless funds to spend on search engine optimization and code programmers who know the inner secrets to building a site that has a budding affair with Google or even Bing. But social media does help to level the playing field and provides great opportunities for brand visibility to those who commit a little time and effort.
Boutique firms like ours can now keep up with the Jones’s through research and patience. Our efforts in taking an integrated approach to utilizing all these mediums are already successful. It just goes to show that working the social media love triangle can easily influence a website’s ranking in regular search results. By linking a website and its content between various social media outlets, it will organically start to increase online presence within the Milky Way galaxy that is the internet.
Finally, it’s not just about quantity, but the quality of your tweets, your Facebook updates, your blog articles, how you link them amongst each other, and more. The more effort you put into this, the higher the value a search engine considers your site to be. There is definitely a method to the madness.
And so, as I lose more of my sanity delving into this Matrix, I will continue to share the CBC REalta journey with you. With any type of marketing, the ultimate goal is to 1) promote brand awareness and, 2) produce new business. The more tools the better – and these are literally right at our collective fingertips.
Don’t forget to “Retweet” this, “Like” on Facebook, make a film about it on YouTube, “Follow” us on LinkedIn and visit our website!!!
By Richard Selig
When Peter Sabesan and I started the Hunter Organization in 1997, each of us already had more than a decade of experience representing landlords, highlighted by our mutual tenures at Helmsley-Spear, and as tenant brokers. Needless to say, the commercial real estate landscape was vastly different then, dotted by boutiques such as ours that worked alongside local and regional giants like Edward S. Gordon and Newmark.
But in little over a decade, there have been great and rapid changes. For one thing, a major share of the boutique and mid-size agencies have merged in order to gain access to businesses at national and global levels. Our firm began at the cutting-edge of business; we were among the first to fully utilize different technology platforms and among our first major client bases were dot.com start-ups, primarily in the late 1990s. This forward-focused outlook continues today in our firm and as a result, a significant portion of the tenants we represent are social media companies, along with such other core business sectors as finance, fashion and insurance.
But when the time came to reinvigorate the business model, it wasn’t much of a stretch for us to broaden our horizons by joining forces with a preeminent asset management company with a national base, Phoenix Asset Management, and then bring both of our companies into the Coldwell Banker Commercial network, under the CBC Realta Group umbrella, www.cbcrealta.com.
It has been approximately a year and a half and, like the major conglomerates, we have access to a national network of tenants. The main difference, however, lies in our ability to provide personalized service; more often than not, directly from the principals. In many ways, CBC Hunter Realty functions as a boutique with 30-plus brokers, but we have an impressive and active network of agencies worldwide.
For us, this transition has been the best of all worlds. We are able to conduct business on both national and local levels, working with landlords whom we’ve known for decades and with a client base that includes businesses based across the country, looking to relocate or open satellite offices in New York. And supporting us is an unparalleled network, constantly in touch through our website and social media sites.
The business has changed faster in the past decade or than it probably did in 100 years. But the one thing that hasn’t shifted is the need for strong relationships and an expectation of fine service.
