Hidary Brothers and Hidrock Realty on Hotel Development on Greenwich Street

Steven Hidary: We have to keep in mind that it’s still a construction-development site downtown. In a few years, you’ll have a Brookfield (BN) development, and a Westfield development of retail and shopping that’s going to bring restaurants, bars and nightlife. You’ll see a change from that.

From what I understand, Hidrock is in the process of refinancing several assets in its Manhattan portfolio of four buildings. Can you elaborate on what Hidrock’s currently leveraging?
Abraham Hidary: We completed two refinances, both assets that we’ve owned for approximately four or five years. And we brought down the interest rates dramatically on new five-year financing.

Steven Hidary: I’ll just add to that, on the leasing and management side of the office portfolio, occupancy for us is in the mid- to high-90s throughout the portfolio. And on the management side, we recently achieved Energy Star certification and we’ve brought down our utility costs.

As siblings working together do you fight often?

Abraham Hidary: We love it, working together.

But do you fight?
Eddie Hidary: Oh, we fight (laughs). But, no, we have a great relationship and we’ve been able to work well together with much success.

Steven Hidary: Our father started the business around 30 years ago and we’ve been involved now for 12 or 13 years at this point. We changed the business plan from investing in a family fund throughout the eastern part of the country into focusing on New York and growing our portfolio within the New York area. And that’s what we’ve done, and we’ve maintained more of a focus now on commercial office buildings and now we’ve expanded into hotels over the last couple of years.

Do you guys ever get tired of seeing each other?
Abraham Hidary: We all live in the same neighborhood. We drive, we commute to work together.

jsederstrom@observer.com