Nora Caliban, 27

Nora Caliban is right at home with the Durst Organization, where she handles leasing for the firm’s office and retail portfolio on Manhattan’s West Side.

The native New Yorker began her career at Durst as an intern, leasing apartments and then going to work for Tishman Speyer for three years before Durst called her back to help lease up its Class A office buildings on Sixth Avenue such as 1155 Avenue of the Americas.

But getting into real estate when she did was hardly an easy path — though it tempered her in a unique way.

“Leasing apartments was scary at the peak of the pandemic. And then coming to Durst and seeing real estate shift in all these different directions, it’s been really interesting,” Caliban said. “I feel lucky to be able to experience all these different sides of it at a young age.”

One of the deals that stands out over the last two and a half years at Durst was insurance firm Everest taking 66,444 square feet across the seventh through ninth floors of 1155 Avenue of the Americas in April 2024.

“Being the youngest person on the team and being trusted with the leasing efforts at 1155 was really exciting,” Caliban said. “That deal started the momentum for us, and now 1155 is almost 94 percent leased.” 

Another memorable deal for Caliban involved the company responsible for the concept of sushi restaurant Momoya, which signed a 5,000-square-foot lease at the ground level of One Bryant Park in February for an as-yet unnamed venture.

“I remember when the Momoya team came through to look at [the space],” Caliban said. “We were like, ‘This is totally the right fit, these are the right operators, they have vision.’ ”

Caliban isn’t the first in her family to work at Durst, nor is she the first on Commercial Observer’s Young Professionals list: Her older brother Bailey, who made the list in 2023, handles leasing for the company’s portfolio on the East Side.