Patrick Steffens.
Patrick Steffens, 27
Associate in office leasing at Avison Young
Patrick Steffens started interning at real estate firms during college, and he fell in love.
“You see the city in a whole other way,” he said.
Steffens is an associate in Avison Young’s office leasing department, where he represents both tenants and landlords and advises on site selection, financial modeling and lease negotiations.
Recently, Steffens worked with the Brooklyn-based Hellenic Classical Charter School in finding a second campus in the city. The school leased a 23,000-square-foot space on Staten Island for the short-term as it continues to look for a larger site, Steffens said. He also represented the nonprofit WIN Inc., which helps women and children in need, in finding a 26,580-square-foot sublease space in the Financial District that was below its budget.
Both deals were years-long processes that involved months of viewings and working closely with the C-suite.
Vornado Realty Trust and Edward J. Minskoff Equities also recently hired Steffens’ team to market 825 Seventh Avenue, a 170,000-square-foot office with ground-floor retail. That job came through around the time Steffens, like most others, was settling into a work-from-home routine.
He’s now back in Avison Young’s new offices, which opened in Midtown in late September, and he’s glad to be getting away from the work-from-home setup: an ironing board and his ergonomic office chair from the old office. Steffens spent some of the shutdown back home in Brooklyn with his parents, and much of it experimenting with cooking, creating an at-home Taco Tuesday each week.
Moving forward, Steffens plans to double down on his volunteer work for organizations like United Way, particularly with their ReadNYC program, which helps keep kids reading at their grade level in order to ensure a path to success, and the Rockaway Youth Rugby Club. “Giving back is something I’ve always prided myself on,” he said.
