Jeff Blau and Bruce Beal

Related Companies remains a juggernaut, with Jeff Blau and Bruce Beal leading the charge.

The New York-based developer has been at the forefront of office tenants’ flight to quality since the pandemic, thanks to Hudson Yards, which Related co-developed with Oxford Properties. After a brutal start during the depths of the pandemic, the firm adapted, reducing the retail footprint in Hudson Yards and doubling down on leasing up its office.

Related’s existing office stock at the megaproject on Manhattan’s far West Side is now fully leased to blue-chip tenants such as BlackRock, Meta and L’Oreal. Even critics, including public officials like former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, have come around on Hudson Yards.

“We opened about two minutes before COVID, so it wasn’t the best timing,” said Blau. “But, after COVID, Hudson Yards really came into its own.”

More is in store. In January 2026, the developer scored a $1.6 billion construction loan for 70 Hudson Yards, a 1.4 million-square-foot, 72-story office tower where Deloitte has already committed to lease about two-thirds of the space. The loan was not only the biggest of its kind in New York since 2020, but it also seeded one of the city’s largest ground-up construction projects since the pandemic.

Related looks to be weathering further challenges. When its bid to secure a coveted gambling license to add a casino atop the remaining far West Side railyards fell apart, it shifted gears — and got the city on board to help finance the expensive platform.

“We listened,” said Beal. “When the city pushed back and said ‘We want more housing on the yards, and we want more affordable housing,’ we made those changes.”

Although New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani faces some pressure from local groups to halt the $2 billion payment-in-lieu-of-taxes structure, which would allow Related to redirect tax revenues from the site toward financing the platform, Blau and Beal are getting ready to build.

Then there’s also Related Companies’ venture into AI data centers, which launched last year. Related had been building solar power plants when tech companies entered the picture.

“Originally, we were selling power to state governments or utilities, and, then, ultimately the big tech companies came calling to buy that power from us.” Blau said. “And, at first, we didn’t really understand what they were doing with all that power. It was before all the craziness around data centers.”

Now it’s getting a piece of the action. In April, it landed financing to build a $16 billion data ‌center campus in Michigan for Larry Ellison’s Oracle, with Blackstone as an equity partner.