Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies

Gotham is lucky enough to have a number of powerful duos who call it home, but few are quite as dynamic as Harmon and Spies. And when the city came under siege from COVID-19, the pair leapt into action, closing more than $5 billion in investment sales alone last year. Kapow!

“In downturns and times of uncertainty, we continue to build relationships that last for decades,” Spies said. “Last year was about giving that counsel to investors in each portion of the capital stack so they could best plan to meet their ultimate objectives.”

In the depths of the pandemic, in July 2020, the two closed Savanna’s $435 million purchase of 1375 Broadway — a 27-story office tower. In December, they led Meadow Partners’ $230 million acquisition of the leasehold interest in 860 Washington Street — also one of the few office trades to close at the time. 

The two didn’t exactly sleep on the office financing side, either. During a time when everyone and their mother was questioning the future of office, they closed a $415 million refi for Angelo, Gordon & Co., George Comfort & Sons and Columbia Property Trust’s 575 Lexington, plus a $360 million refi for SL Green Realty’s 100 Park Avenue. (Showoffs!)

“There was demand for yield, multifamily, industrial and anything you could sprinkle lab dust on, so overall there was a lot of capital focused on a few things,” Spies said of the past year. “We were also busy selling some notes for some banks and helping people quietly restructure.”

Those deals included the $100 million B-Note sale on SL Green’s One Court Square to  Davidson Kempner Capital Group.

“Last year was certainly challenging in that investors were looking for distress, and there wasn’t a lot available for a host of reasons,” Spies said. “But, we’ve stayed incredibly active closing deals in the industrial and multifamily space in particular, both in New York City and around the country.” 

That’s putting it mildly. In September 2020, the team closed on PGIM Real Estate and partners’ acquisition and recap of a 40 percent interest in a 5.4 million-square-foot industrial portfolio valued at $700 million.

Harmon and Spies are off to a roaring start to 2021, too. In January, they arranged $380 million in mezzanine debt for Extell Development’s Central Park Tower, as well as the $424 million sale of the affordable housing community at 265-275 Cherry Street to Related Fund Management. Most recently, they led the sale of the office condo at Brookfield Property Partners’ 12 MetroTech Center to 60 Guilders and Davidson Kempner.—C.C.