James Nelson, Scott Singer and Brandon Polakoff.
James Nelson, Scott Singer and Brandon Polakoff
Principal and head of tri-state investment sales; principal and co-lead of tri-state debt and equity finance; principal and executive director of tri-state investment sales at Avison Young
Last year's rank: 84
Acquisitions in the real estate world can be fraught endeavors, but James Nelson put Scott Singer at ease when Avison Young acquired the Singer & Bassuk Organization in 2021. Both had served on industry boards and known each other a long time, so it wasn’t a surprise when Nelson called Singer in February 2020 suggesting they join forces.
“It was my last business meeting before COVID shut everything down,” Singer said. “It took a few months of dislocation, really, until we spoke over the summer while still both home by force and said ‘Look, how are things going? Should we still do this?’ and we did.”
It helped that they had areas of expertise that didn’t overlap much. Singer’s group focuses on debt finance and has a history of representing family-run, New York-based owners such as Muss Development, Jack Resnick & Sons and the Winter Organization.
Since the merger, they’ve closed about $3 billion in transactions through their New York office. Singer’s largest deal was a $293 million permanent loan to help Rockrose finance its high-rise apartment tower at Hudson Yards, but he also financed smaller deals such as a $5 million medical office condo for Muss in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
“They have a global and national footprint and yet didn’t have a group that was focused on New York City finance, which was a perfect situation for us,” Singer said.
Nelson has welcomed the new team and touted that Avison Young closed 41 investment sales last year — deals spanning 16 percent of the buildings that sold in Manhattan. One of their most prominent deals was Crown Acquisitions’ $38 million sale of 144 Fulton Street, home to the largest Chick-fil-A site in the world. Even more impressive was the sale of a loft on 45 Bleecker Street that a British billionaire bought through Zillow.
Nelson credits Brandon Polakoff’s ingenuity for understanding SoHo’s complex zoning that changed under the Eric Adams administration.
“It went through three different land use attorneys before they believed we could sell off a majority of it as residential,” Nelson said. “We put listings out in unique ways, although we’re not putting all our eggs in the Zillow basket.”
