Michael Shalom, 27
Director at Cushman & Wakefield
Michael Shalom was early on in his career when in 2018 he had a meeting with Joanne Podell, executive vice chair of retail services at Cushman & Wakefield, about joining her team. There was a newspaper on her desk with a clearly visible headline that included the words “retail apocalypse.”
“Are you sure you want to be doing this?” Podell asked Shalom.
“If you’re willing to take a chance on me, who better to do it with than probably the best company in the world at it, and one of its best teams?” he replied.
Shalom was in. He has been a big part of his team’s work with a kaleidoscope of retail clients on the tenant and landlord sides. To name a few: TD Bank (in its New York City rollout), Citizens Bank, Nike, Converse, Ann Taylor, Wharton Properties, Empire State Realty Trust and the Witkoff Organization. Shalom has also developed a specialty in helping digitally native retail brands transition to brick-and-mortar locations.
Some of Shalom’s biggest deals include securing a global flagship for department store Miniso at 5 Times Square, a U.S. flagship for Kleinfeld Bridal at 110 West 20th Street, Shake Shack’s Penn Station spot, and Sunglass Hut’s SoHo store at 523 Broadway. He also worked on the three-story Starbucks Roastery deal at the Empire State Building, inked in 2020 with the complex opening late last year.
“That was one of the most eye-opening things for retail for me because I said, ‘Wow, if a coffee shop can do this, what can a fashion brand do? What can an experiential concept do?’ ” Shalom said.
It was an epiphany like this that led the Brooklyn native into commercial real estate. Shalom was finishing politics and economics studies at George Washington University in D.C. and planning on law school. The changes in the built environment in the nation’s capital, though, in the 2010s convinced him to pivot career-wise. New buildings and new commercial hubs were transforming whole neighborhoods.
“A lot of people talk about real estate and getting into it because of New York,” Shalom said, “but D.C. is really what got me excited about the change that real estate can have on the world and on communities.”
