Taylor Reynolds.
Taylor Reynolds, 26
Director in Retail Services at Cushman & Wakefield
A sizable share of Taylor Reynolds’ work is on the tenant side of the retail leasing business nationally and in New York City in particular — which, of course, means she saw some of the toughest fallout from the pandemic as dozens of retailers went bankrupt and thousands of stores shuttered.
She and her business got through it via a potpourri of strategic planning and negotiating as well as market research. Thankfully, 2021 is looking better.
“I will say that 2021 has been a very different year in the sense that we’re extremely busy with new transactions,” said Reynolds, who rose through Cushman & Wakefield from associate to director in five years. “When we started the year, we weren’t really sure how it would go, but it has definitely surprised us. I’m hopeful that will transfer over into 2022. It feels like it will. It feels like there’s good momentum.”
The most prominent retail deal Reynolds has worked on during the pandemic — this time on the landlord side — was the 15-year lease for 18,400 square feet on West 18th Street for urgent-care chain Summit CityMD. The early 2021 deal represented the first New York City one for Summit Medical Group and CityMD following their 2019 merger, and it filled a block-through spot.
Reynolds’ most high profile deal overall came toward the end of 2016, when she again repped the ownership side in a 12,000-square-foot deal for makeup giant Ulta’s first New York City flagship on East 86th Street. The deal came amid the first whispers of a supposed “retail apocalypse.”
“We thought it was a very strong message to the market,” Reynolds said of the lease.
Such dealmaking was not born just of expertise and networking. It also had to do with an approach to work that Reynolds said became that much more honed during the pandemic.
“I’ve always kind of lived by the idea that there’s a really fine balance between persistence and patience,” she said. “I thought that was really important during COVID — having the right amount of persistence while also being sensitive to what was going on.”—T.A.
