Jeff Sutton

If Jeff Sutton did one thing during the pandemic, it was make sure that, no matter what happens, he got paid.

Sutton scored $8.8 million in back rent from the firm behind Italian footwear brand Geox’s U.S. locations that the shoe company had tried to wiggle out of, and Sutton seems to have made rent guarantees a priority at his 363-room hotel at 25 West 34th Street. He snagged short-term rentals operator Sonder as a tenant in a lease agreement for under $300 million, rather than contracting with a hospitality provider to run the hotel. The deal means the hotel’s employees don’t have to be part of a union and Sutton is guaranteed an income.

The retail investor par excellence also ventured further into the office market in 2021, partnering with the Korean investment fund KTB Investment & Securities to buy an office building leased to UBS Financial Services in Weehawken, N.J., for $219 million from Hartz Mountain Industries. In total, he purchased $250 million worth of properties in 2021, refinanced over $800 million in debt, and sold over $100 million worth of buildings.

Those sales included his $31 million stake in a commercial property at 103 North Fourth Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to Korean real estate investors; a Bath Beach, Brooklyn, building at 2076-2084 86th Street for $17.25 million to Lloyd Goldman’s BLDG Management; and the sale of 2925 Kings Highway in Midwood, Brooklyn, for $18 million. Despite selling the Brooklyn properties, Sutton’s outer borough buildings did well during the pandemic thanks to foot traffic from residents.

Sutton also scored some victories in his Manhattan retail properties, many of which reside on shopping corridors like Madison and Fifth avenues. He snatched up Versace as a tenant at 747 Madison Avenue, replacing Givenchy at the building on the corner of East 65th Street. Business in 2021 was a far cry from the first dismal year of the pandemic for the notoriously press-shy king of retail.