Benjamin Joseph.
Ben Joseph, 29
Vice President in the Agency Group at CBRE
The 100,000-square-foot-plus lease was once a fairly routine bit of business in New York City real estate, but during the pandemic became as elusive and sought after as a white whale. You wouldn’t know this, however, based on Benjamin Joseph’s record. His fingerprints are on two such deals.
The 29-year-old Yale University graduate who works in CBRE’s agency group helped move Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company of America into 125,000 square feet at 1345 Avenue of the Americas and Jennison Associates into a roomy 120,000 square feet at Park Avenue Plaza, two Fisher Brothers buildings.
If those weren’t impressive enough, Joseph was part of the team that did one of the most storied real estate deals of the last few years: the redevelopment of the 1.3 million-square-foot St. John’s Terminal.
“I worked with Rick Cook [a founding partner of COOKFOX Architects] and the entire development team to create a one-of-a-kind office building that would attract world-class tenants,” Joseph said. “It was an incredibly complex deal structure whereby a speculative development transitioned into a fully customized built-to-suit for Google.”
Moreover, Joseph got a look under the hood at Google’s purchase option for the site, which it exercised this September for a whopping $2.1 billion. “All said, it was a fascinating opportunity to learn from the best and brightest and play a role in the successful development of a transformative property for the New York City waterfront.”
Joseph made his way into the business when he was still in college. He had been a pitcher on the university’s baseball team and one summer when he was rehabbing an injury he stayed around New Haven and took an internship with Yale University Properties, the group that managed the school’s large commercial and retail footprint in the Connecticut city.
“I got to know a city, know who’s where,” Joseph said. “I knew I didn’t want to go into banking or consulting and had a couple of family friends, alumni connections, to work in the brokerage world. It was pretty clear it would be a fun world to be in.”—M.G.
