Craig Deitelzweig

Prior to the pandemic, Craig Deitelzweig’s Manhattan-based Marx Realty prided itself on thoroughly amenitized buildings that emphasized a healthful, streamlined experience for users — the sort of offices to which employees might want to come.

You can see where this is going. Such buildings became that much more desirable due to COVID, putting the privately held Marx in the commercial real estate catbird seat.

“We didn’t slow down and we’re glad we didn’t, because now that tenants are coming out, they’re really wanting this type of product,” Deitelzweig said. “They want to bring their employees back, and the best way to do that is to bring them to a space that they’ll love going to.”

Earlier this year, Marx completed the repositioning of 545 Madison Avenue, a 17-story, 140,000-square-foot office property full of wellness features that include UV lights in the ductwork and enhanced air-filtration systems. It even turned out that the copper and brass finishes that Marx chose for 545 Madison, because they appeared warm and inviting, are particularly inhospitable to coronavirus. Marx also finished building out what the company calls its Penthouse Collection at 10 Grand Central, 25,000 square feet of top-shelf office space.

This year as well, Marx partnered with Invesco Real Estate on a $75 million plan to convert a former printing press at 1307 New York Avenue NW in Washington into a 134,000-square-foot office property with hotel-like amenities uncommon in the office stock of the nation’s capital.

Finally, the company is redeveloping and rebranding the 1.15 million-square-foot Cross County Center in Yonkers, just north of New York City. It features a 130,000-square-foot Target, which Marx landed to fill an empty Sears site.

Who says brick-and-mortar retail is dead? Or, for that matter, urban areas?

“There were all these scary newspaper stories about people not coming back,” Deitelzweig said of cities and the early part of the pandemic. “But we didn’t believe that. We believe in cities, we believe in New York, we believe in D.C. And we believe in our product.”—T.A.