James Nelson, A. Mitti Liebersohn and Arthur Mirante
Arthur Mirante, A. Mitti Liebersohn and James Nelson
Principal and Tri-State President; President and Managing Director of New York City Operations; Principal and Head of Tri-State Investment Sales at Avison Young
Last year's rank: 83
Avison Young had more than a half-dozen sales in contract when the pandemic hit. It managed to close all of them, said James Nelson, adding that this was perhaps the 2020 achievement he was proudest of.
“It was certainly challenging,” he said. “In many cases, it meant having to sell the property twice and keep the buyer on the line. But I think this is a market where, if you are creative and flexible, and can be ingenious at times, you can make things happen.”
Those salvaged deals included the $26 million sale to RYBAK Development of a development site at 126 East 86th Street; the $28.7 million sale of Extell Development’s retail condo at 1683 Third Avenue; and the $22 million sale of a pair of rental buildings totaling 72 units at 103-105 MacDougal Street to Davean Holdings.
From the start of 2020 to now, the firm has closed $310 million in investment sales, with another $116 million currently in contract. It has negotiated nearly 1 million square feet of new office leases over the same time period.
Among the standout leasing transactions were a 10-year, 7,100-square-foot lease at 100 Park Avenue for law firm Cozen O’Connor; and a 12-year, early renewal on 77,000 square feet at 120 West 45th Street for D.E. Shaw, an investment and development technology firm.
The firm’s pipeline looks robust heading toward the second half of 2021. Since the start of the year, Nelson and his team have begun marketing properties valued at more than $675 million and brought 11 new properties onboard in the last month.
Avison Young also used the relative sluggishness of the pandemic market to focus on building out data and technology resources, said Arthur Mirante, noting that it brought aboard around 80 new employees specializing in those areas.
“We saw it as a great opportunity to hire talent both in the technology field and the data collection field, because so much of that talent was available at this particular point in time,” he said. This new expertise, he added, “will let us help our clients more efficiently and enable them to make more informed real estate decisions.”—A.B
