Ryan Candel, 26

Ask Ryan Candel about an aspect of the New York commercial real estate market, and get ready for some numbers. 

Candel has a senior role in land development deals at BKREA, the firm that veteran investment sales broker Bob Knakal started in early 2024. Knakal and company are known within the industry for decades’ worth of deep stats on the New York market.   

“It’s data that I’m able to share with my sellers — because that’s, at the end of the day, who I want to speak with on a daily basis — but also speaking to developers and getting them comfortable with certain sites based on data,” Candel said. “It just helps us to our advantage.”

A multisport athlete in high school who played lacrosse for a time in college, Candel originally envisioned himself as a sports agent in the mold of the fictional Ari Gold. The Upper East Side native who grew up in Nassau County found himself making deep inroads into commercial real estate after graduating the University of Wisconsin at Madison (and after a brief detour working in e-commerce). Part of that was having family in the business, and the other part was from conscious networking, including via a sports training business he started in the Hamptons during the COVID lockdowns. 

Through that networking, Candel landed an informational meet-and-greet with Knakal and then-business partner Jonathan Hageman while they were at JLL. That led to a job there. Candel then followed Knakal to BKREA in spring 2024, after what he described as an impactful experience at the brokerage. That included helping broker the $87.4 million sale of 540 West 21st Street in April 2024 for a high-end condo. 

“I decided it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up on, and it really has been an awesome experience thus far,” Candel said of the move. 

In addition to parsing which land development deals work for BKREA at large, Candel works on his own trades. The most prominent recent one involves an assemblage in Manhattan’s coveted NoMad enclave that provides 157,000 buildable square feet to a buyer. It’s coming to market this summer.