Peter Riguardi
Chairman and president of the New York region at JLL
Last year's rank: 17
A year ago, the million-plus-square-foot office lease was believed to be a vestige of a bygone era, and that no broker should hold their breath.
But, since the 2024 Power 100, Peter Riguardi has served as the tenant broker on not one but two million-plus deals.
In the first, Riguardi assisted Blackstone’s expansion to 1.06 million square feet at Rudin’s 345 Park Avenue. (With Riguardi on the deal was Joseph Messina, Jessica Berkey, William McGarry, Hale King, Cynthia Wasserberger and Carlee Palmer.) Riguardi’s team also quietly negotiated the renewal for Barclays’ 1.1 million square feet at 745 Seventh Avenue.
Indeed, as the office market finally turned around in 2024, JLL was there to capitalize. In comparison to 2023, “for me, it was a much greater volume,” Riguardi said. “We’re [representing] now some big deals in the market, and it’s challenging because we’re running out of good space — even if you’re willing to pay, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna get the great space.”
Riguardi is currently working with industry titans like BXP on finding an anchor for 3 Hudson Boulevard; and with Vornado on filling 15 Penn Plaza; and his team is working with RXR and TF Cornerstone on finding an anchor for 175 Park Avenue, the 2.5 million-square-foot, multibillion-dollar project that will include a 200-key Hyatt hotel and supertall office — oh, and he’s selling the old Roosevelt Hotel.
“We’re talking to a lot of tenants,” Riguardi told CO in March. “There’s been more meetings with occupiers since January than there were all of last year.” (Well, we have to assume at least a little dropoff since April 2’s “Liberation Day.” But still.)
And, while all this is extremely impressive, Riguardi — a dyed-in-the-wool New York Mets fan — has spent a lot of the last year in the mold of David Stearns: building a World Series-worthy team internally at JLL.
Many of the names that JLL has picked up over the last year will no doubt excite: Michael Colacino (formerly of Savills) was named president of tri-state brokerage; David Carlos (also of Savills) was brought in as head of the nonprofit, education and government practice; Lindsay Ornstein and Stephen Powers of Open Impact made a deal to be JLL’s exclusive women-owned business enterprise partner in the tri-state; and Pat Murphy and Kevin Kelly were brought in from Cushman & Wakefield as vice chairmen.
