Joseph Chetrit and Meyer Chetrit

The enigmatic ownership and development company headed by brothers Joseph and Meyer Chetrit retooled properties and loans over the past 18 months, which eased the company through the worst effects of the pandemic and maintained its prominence in the industry.

In New York, the biggest deals included the May 2022 sale of a $110 million note on a 323-key hotel that Chetrit has planned at 255 West 34th Street; and the closing, also in May, of a $714 million commercial mortgage-backed securities loan, along with Stellar Management, on a pair of apartment towers in Manhattan’s East 80s — a real feat given the frigid financing climate. In March of this year, Chetrit sold 850 Third Avenue, a 21-story office building, to HPS Investment Partners, a lender on the building, for just under $266 million.

Chetrit moved especially aggressively in South Florida. In September, the company bought a building housing a Macy’s off Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road with local powerhouse the Finvarb Group for $15.5 million. It’s across the street from the Miami Beach Convention Center, but there are no immediate plans to redevelop it, according to The Real Deal. Chetrit is developing a 121-unit condo project with a 20-slip marina in Pompano Beach. The company scored a $94 million construction loan for it in May 2022, TRD reported. 

The biggest Chetrit move in New York or South Florida, though, is the River District. That project is supposed to deliver 4 million square feet of residential units, retail, Class A office and parking — plus a marina — on about 6 acres along the Miami River. At the end of 2021, news broke that Chetrit had partnered with nightlife impresario David Grutman on the River District development.

It hasn’t been all sunshine for the Chetrits. That 850 Third sale was at a loss, and as 2023 started the company faced a $481 million default on a loan tied to dozens of properties. Plus, Chetrit had to take on partners to rescue its Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn. Still, the fact that the Chetrits keep playing in the rarefied upper reaches of commercial real estate despite the setbacks puts them on this list again.