Nathan Berman

Nathan Berman has been synonymous for years with office-to-residential conversions.

So it came as kind of a wowza moment in March 2024 when The Real Deal broke the news that Berman’s Metro Loft NYC had cut a deal to do the largest U.S. office-to-residential conversion to date: The redevelopment of the 33-story, 672,462-square-foot former Pfizer headquarters at 235 East 42nd Street into roughly 1,500 apartments.

The bombshell cemented Berman’s reputation at the nexus of what’s become a major trend in commercial real estate. He has more than 26 years of experience doing conversions, creating more than 5 million square feet of new space out of old. And, as Metro Loft makes clear on its website, Berman “personally oversees the vision and implementation of each project, both from a design and a financial perspective.”

That vision has then overseen conversions such as an old book bindery into 53 luxury condos at 443 Greenwich Street; the former New York Stock Exchange’s home at 55 Broad Street into 533 market-rate apartments; the old office building at 180 Water Street into 580 apartments, also market-rate; and a former shipping company headquarters at 67 Wall Street into 331 apartments. (His first project was far more modest than these: the conversion of a cast-iron building at 71 Leonard Street in Tribeca into eight residential lofts.) 

Berman’s firm has two big conversions underway with roots in 2023. In July, Metro Loft and partner Silverstein Properties closed on the acquisition of the 55 Broad Street office building, which they plan to convert into 571 housing units. And, in January last year, Metro Loft and partners closed on a $536 million loan for the ongoing conversion of 25 Water Street — aka 4 New York Plaza, a 1.1 million-square-foot office tower that housed back-of-house operations for J.P. Morgan Chase. 

Berman described the tower, as it was, as “a penitentiary” during a Commercial Observer forum in November. No matter. He and his people are adding two interior courtyards for more light, reskinning the facade, and constructing nine more floors to help create its 1,320 homes. Don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing.