Nathan Berman
Founding principal at Metro Loft
Last year's rank: 56
If there’s a major office-to-residential conversion happening in New York City, chances are Nathan Berman is involved.
In the past year, Berman’s Metro Loft has started work on transforming 767 Third Avenue, 675 Third Avenue, 101 Greenwich Street, 235 East 42nd Street and 219 East 42nd Street into residential. Plus, there are the conversions at 55 Broad Street, which welcomed tenants this year, and 25 Water Street, which started leasing earlier this year.
It makes sense that Berman’s services are in high demand. Many owners had to quickly come to terms with the fact that the pandemic rendered some of their office buildings obsolete, and therefore in need of re-imagining. Berman has been doing just that for three decades and has more than 5 million square feet of office-to-resi conversion under his belt.
“I’m the broken clock that’s right twice a day,” Berman said. “Now it’s our time of day. We’re the flavor of the month, so to speak.”
With his newfound popularity, Berman keeps breaking records. The 1,300-unit conversion at 25 Water Street held the title for largest office-to-resi conversion in the city, and Berman is expected to top that with nearly 1,600 units in the works at the former Pfizer headquarters on East 42nd Street. For that project, Metro Loft and partner David Werner Real Estate Investments locked down $75 million in acquisition financing for 219 East 42nd in August and took full control of the neighboring 235 East 42nd for $18 million in October.
Plus, Berman was recently able to straighten out the distressed loan at 180 Water Street, closing in on a roughly $335 million recap.
Berman isn’t just saying yes to any conversion that comes across his desk. They have to be at least 100,000 square feet, require no zoning changes, and have a price that makes sense. The conversion’s actual complexity doesn’t matter so much, thanks to Berman’s experience.
“We see a lot of very complex situations, but we have seen so many of these and have dealt with so many that now it’s not a major challenge for us,” Berman said. “I almost see it as a challenge that we can make things work that others think are not doable.”
