Winston Fisher (left) and Kenneth Fisher.
Winston Fisher and Kenneth Fisher
Partner at Fisher Brothers and CEO of Area 15; partner at Fisher Brothers
Last year's rank: 29
Cousins Winston Fisher and Kenneth Fisher kicked off 2025 with a $500 million refinancing.
Fisher Brothers refinanced its debt on the 42-story 299 Park Avenue, netting some additional proceeds to reinvest into the 1.2 million-square-foot office tower before its next leasing cycle, Winston Fisher said. While the property is 95 percent leased (and was freshly renovated in 2020), Kenneth Fisher said the company is always looking for ways to improve its assets.
The extra investment is just one way Fisher Brothers, founded in 1915, tries to stay a step ahead.
Case in point: The company entered last year hot off the heels of securing 2023’s largest office lease, when law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison took 765,000 square feet at 1345 Avenue of the Americas. Fisher Brothers pushed to keep that momentum going into 2025, securing a deal for Virgo Business Centers to renew its 41,000 square feet at the same building in September, and getting law firm Ellenoff Grossman & Schole to renew and expand its space at the tower to 56,000 square feet in January of this year.
Winston Fisher attributes the company’s leasing success to the cousins’ hands-on approach.
“There’s always a Fisher at the end of the phone,” he said. “We meet with every tenant, we invest in the assets, and we really focused on the asset renewal of 1345 — not when we were trying to lease, but before leasing — so when you show tenants what you’re doing, it’s not a construction site.”
The 50-story Avenue of the Americas building may be in for some more changes this year, with Blackstone reportedly planning to acquire J.P. Morgan’s stake in the property. Fisher Brothers plans to double down on its investment at the same time, and maybe even put more money into the building, Winston Fisher said.
Fisher Brothers is also expanding out West, adding to its massive Las Vegas entertainment district known as Area 15. Universal Studios plans to open an immersive, 100,000-square-foot year-round horror experience at Area 15 this August, as Fisher Brothers looks to develop another roughly 40 acres of land near the district.
