Jeffrey Gural, Eric Gural and Brian Steinwurtzel

GFP Real Estate and GFP Development may be breaking off into separate entities — something they announced last month — but it seems to be merely another iteration of the Gural family’s growing influence through the generations.

Family continues to be the emphasis at the business founded in the early 1950s by Jeffrey Gural’s father, Aaron Gural. The development aspect of GFP is expected to grow while its “legacy portfolio” continues along the path it has followed for decades.

Gural’s nephew Brian Steinwurtzel, who is now serving as CEO of GFP Development (while Jeff Gural continues to run the other side), will be looking for new opportunities to build in and around New York City and Jersey City, N.J., all while overseeing some of the area’s most attention-grabbing office-to-residential conversions.

Those projects include Lower Manhattan’s 100 Gold Street, where Steinwurtzel has been converting the office building into 3,700 units of housing; and a joint venture between GFP and Metro Loft to redevelop 25 Water Street in the same area into a 1,320-unit apartment building. The company is also converting 222 Broadway into nearly 800 apartments.

“We’ve been operating as two separate companies within one for some time, and it’s because there’s been so much opportunity in the development world, from life science development to student housing, office-to-residential conversions, which we’ve really leaned into very heavily during the pandemic,” Steinwurtzel said. “I think it just made sense to have two companies, even though we will continue to work extremely close.”

Steinwurtzel said the city-owned 100 Gold Street, with about 1,000 units set aside as affordable housing, will serve as a template for New York City government regarding the office-to-residential conversions it awards to developers.

Meanwhile, Jeff Gural will continune doing what he does best: managing the office portfolio he’s built in Manhattan over the decades, many formerly industrial office buildings centered mainly in the Garment District and SoHo.

“That was the fun part of the business, making deals, buying buildings, hiring architects, seeing the project through,” Jeff Gural said. “So I told Brian when he was younger, ‘You should focus on development.’ He has, and he’s succeeded even more than I thought.”