Andrew Dzenis, 27
Assistant director at Savills
Andrew Dzenis honed his real estate chops in a somewhat unlikely location: on fishing boats off the coast of Long Island.
From a young age, Dzenis was drawn to the sea, so at the ripe age of 12 he got a job as a bait boy on charter fishing boats in Montauk, N.Y. He eventually moved up to first mate and spent long summer days filling bait traps, fileting the catches of the day, and scrubbing the entire boat once the last passengers departed.
“It’s a back-breaking, 12- to 14-hour day,” Dzenis said. “You learn how to work and you learn how to work your tail off.”
His days on the sea also trained Dzenis to spark up conversations with passengers from different socio-economic backgrounds and persuade people on the dock to book time on the fishing boat. He credits those experiences with giving him the skills needed for a successful real estate career.
And it seems to have paid off.
Since starting at Savills in 2018, Dzenis has completed 20 deals totaling 750,000 square feet. He works mainly for its nonprofit advisory practice, helping clients like Housing Works and the Bronx Defenders with their real estate needs.
During the height of the pandemic, Dzenis and his team scoured the Bronx to find KIPP NYC Charter School much-needed space to build a school, eventually landing on 75 Canal Street West. In May, KIPP paid $21.7 million for the parcel where it will construct a 175,000-square-foot high school. Dzenis also secured a 77,000-square-foot lease for KIPP at 110 East 149th Street.
“It’s very, very fulfilling,” Dzenis said. “You can obviously see the physical impact it’s having with these buildings being built, but also knowing that on an annual basis over 2,000 students are going to be learning in a building.”
Aside from his nonprofit work, Dzenis helped risk advisory firm K2 Integrity find a 40,000-square-foot sublease at 730 Third Avenue in June.
Dzenis grew up in Westchester County and graduated from Pennsylvania’s Franklin & Marshall College in 2018, where he interned at TerraCRG and Adams & Company. And the sea still calls the West Village resident’s name. He sometimes spends vacation days working on the boats out on Long Island, or volunteers with the nonprofit Billion Oyster Project restoring live oysters to New York Harbor. —N.R.
