Ariel Schuster and Jeffrey Roseman
Ariel Schuster and Jeffrey Roseman
Vice Chairmen at Newmark Knight Frank
Last year's rank: 77
The retail market has been reeling during the coronavirus pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped Ariel Schuster and Jeffrey Roseman. Both were able to lock down fairly sizable retail leases during, well, lockdown.
In May, Roseman signed a nearly 10,000-square-foot deal with Clinton Hall to open a beer garden at Staten Island’s Empire Outlets mall (which NKF became the exclusive broker for in October).
“We’ve gotten a tremendous amount of interest through COVID,” Roseman said about the project. “We’ve gotten a lot of requests for temporary deals, talking [to firms] for a couple of permanent deals.”
And earlier this month, Schuster represented both sides in Canadian fashion brand Aritzia’s deal to take over the old 30,000-square-foot Dean & Deluca storefront at GFP Real Estate’s 560 Broadway.
“We’ve been really, really busy,” Schuster said. “Talking to new retailers coming in and seeing how we stand.”
Before the pandemic hit, the pair were plenty busy, too. In the past year, Schuster represented CVS in its lease at 130 Fifth Avenue, SL Green Realty Corp. in the 39,436-square-foot deal to replace the Playstation Theater at 1515 Broadway, and P.F. Chang’s signing four leases around the city for its new to-go concept. (All while helping a client find logistics space in Florida.)
Roseman’s deals in the past year include several with chain Blue Bottle Coffee, Salons by JC taking 16,235 square feet at 127 East 59th Street, and a nearly 40,000-square-foot deal with a medical user at the Upper West Side’s historic Ansonia Building.
He also brought to market the renovated Tammany Hall building at 44 Union Square for landlord Reading International and nabbed his fifth Real Estate Board Retail Deal of the Year award in June 2019 for working on the 200,000-square-foot lease at 28 Liberty Street.
In the past few months, Schuster and Roseman have been in constant contact with their clients — talking them through tricky rent abatement negotiations — and picking up new leasing assignments.
Although the headlines look all doom and gloom for the retail market during COVID, both Schuster and Roseman remain optimistic about the city’s future.
“I think there’s going to be a flight to quality,” Schuster said. “There is income and there is pent-up demand to shop.”
“You can’t keep bricks and mortar down, no matter how hard they try,” Roseman said.—N.R.
