Leslie Himmel and Stephen Meringoff

The last 12 months have been “by far, the most challenging time,” in Himmel + Meringoff’s history, said Stephen Meringoff.

As far as new deals were concerned, the firm largely sat out the pandemic, concentrating instead on the health and stability of its existing portfolio, Meringoff said. “We worked with each of our tenants one at a time and dealt with them based on what the business they had was, their own capitalization, and how they felt they could weather the storm,” he said.

This focused approach paid off at the company’s 411 Lafayette property, where existing tenant New York University inked a new 14-year lease and expanded its footprint in the building from 48,000 square feet to 64,000 square feet.

H + M also invested in its existing portfolio to take advantage of what it sees as areas of growth — life sciences and warehouse, in particular. The company’s 500,000-square-foot 525 West 57th Street property already has a foot in the life sciences arena, counting the Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (Labcorp) and the Tisch MS Research Center of New York as tenants. Over the last year, H + M has worked to retrofit an additional portion of the building with what Leslie Himmel said were “all the bells and whistles” needed to attract biotech outfits.

The firm also acquired a pair of small properties adjacent to the 7.5-acre, mixed-use, industrial site in the Bronx’s Van Nest neighborhood that it purchased with Square Mile Capital Management in 2019. The deal will allow H + M to expand the ingress and egress areas for trucks making pickups and deliveries.

“Warehouse distribution is very tricky, because you have these 30-foot trucks that have to get in and out relatively quickly,” Meringoff said, noting that the faster they can get in and out, the more a warehouse owner can charge in rent.

Beyond attending to their own portfolio, the pair has also worked to buoy the larger New York market. Himmel founded the Economic Development Committee of the Real Estate Board of New York nearly three decades ago and continues to co-chair it.

“This year, we had multiple meetings … and the goal is to help change and lead the revival and rebuilding of the city through economic incentives,” she said. “We will come back with hard work and determination.”—A.B