Isaac and Richard Chera

The story of retail’s resurgence after the pandemic has been just one of the significant shifts that helped a relatively under-the-
radar Crown Acquisitions in 2023. 

The firm’s eclectic portfolio of more than 40 retail assets — which historically have run the gamut from glitzy Fifth Avenue shops to outer borough retail to flagship chain-store real estate, — have all been buoyed by a seeming stampede of shoppers and spending. Its fortuitous purchase in 2019 of a 45.4 percent stake in Vornado Realty Trust’s $5.6 billion retail portfolio along upper Fifth Avenue continued to bear fruit. 

Crown, led by brothers Isaac and Richard Chera, rode various trends over the last year in its dealmaking. That included a resurgent luxury market and a softening rent picture for the more
pedestrian-heavy commercial corridors in Manhattan.

Crown Acquisitions sold a prime retail spot in the Financial District, the Chick-fil-A building on 144 Fulton Street, for $38 million in October, after picking up the space in 2015 for $25 million (and selling its air rights for nearly $9 million). Kim Kardashian’s Skims brand also signed a 20,000-square-foot lease in the firm’s Olympic Tower property at 647 Fifth Avenue. 

The Cheras’ firm also engaged in multiple seven-figure retail transactions in Brooklyn, leveraging what’s been a booming time for Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx storefronts, which have seen double-digit rent increases in some neighborhoods in recent years. 

Over in New Jersey, Crown picked up a sterling office asset for $56 million via its First Mile Properties affiliate. Its 287,000-square-foot office building in Paramus, N.J., stands out in a sour market, due in large part to a roster of financial tenants including Morgan Stanley, Mass Mutual, Raymond James and Liberty Mutual.