Larry Silverstein, Lisa Silverstein and Tal Kerret

Last year was a big one for change at the family firm that Larry Silverstein founded in the 1950s. For one thing, daughter Lisa Silverstein took over the top executive spot.

But the change in leadership at the company best known for rebuilding much of the World Trade Center in Manhattan went off without a hitch due in no small part to the younger Silverstein’s involvement with the firm over the past three decades. She took over for longtime CEO Marty Burger, who struck out on his own. 

“She’s the best person in this day and age to drive the business forward,” said Tal Kerret, Silverstein’s president (and Lisa’s husband). “It’s not an easy economic environment around us. … We have to be very focused on where we want to take the business, and [Burger] wanted to do other things. We cheer him, and we like him very much, and we feel good for him, and we may end up finding things in the future we can do together.”

A slow leasing market has not discouraged Silverstein Properties, which has leased about a million square feet of office in the last year. That leasing included major deals at the U.S. Bank Tower in Downtown Los Angeles, where the firm undertook $60 million in capital improvements. Its residential portfolio is 97 percent occupied, too, which is both a good sign and a bad, according to Kerret, who admits that the housing shortage plays a role in that.

Kerret, who was the CEO of two other tech companies before joining his spouse at Silverstein Properties, has also launched a special purpose acquisition company known as SilverTech, which helps incubate technology startups. Between its inception in 2014 and 2021, it had done so for about 30 different companies.

“It’s not our main business, as real estate. You have to believe more than you see,” Kerret said of the venture.