Stephen Siegel and Scott Gottlieb

Given how good the office market was in 2025, it’s no surprise that Stephen Siegel and Scott Gottlieb — CBRE’s two masters of the medium — had such a sparkling 2025.

“We’re well beyond the recovery phase,” Gottlieb said. He and his team executed leases for 2 million square feet across more than 50 transactions, including leading the 336,000-square-foot lease for Universal Music Group at Vornado Realty Trust’s Penn 2.

“You look at the deals being done in Penn Plaza today, compared to the concessions we received, we did very well for Universal there,” Gottlieb said. Gottlieb also arranged Invesco’s more than 200,000-square-foot headquarters renewal at 225 Liberty Street.

Siegel finished 2025 most proud of his work on the 100,000-square-foot deal for Apollo Global Management at 590 Madison Avenue, in which he enticed Apollo to establish an urban campus nearer its other Midtown offices. The firm has since signed on for another 50,000 square feet there.

“There was so little activity for so long that people really were approaching two issues: the need for space and expiring leases,” Siegel said. “They really had to get into the marketplace in a very aggressive way, and they have.”

On the landlord side, Gottlieb negotiated a $500 million revamp deal at One and Two United Nations Plaza, not to mention the United Nations’ 425,190-square-foot renewal at the address. The team also secured Bank of New York Mellon Corporation in a 192,000-square-foot sublease with Condé Nast at One World Trade Center.

Perhaps it was the fact that they did so well last year that they decided to go out on a high note: Gottlieb and Siegel ended their 23-year working partnership late last year. But it’s not the end of the friendship. The pair remain “like family,” according to Siegel.

Both remain dedicated to charity work, too. Gottlieb is a board member at the 1,000-student charter school School in the Square in Washington Heights and Inwood, handling its real estate negotiations. Siegel and his wife raised $5 million for charities last year while serving on the boards of National Jewish Health and marrow registry Gift of Life. Oh, and Siegel published his autobiography “From the Bronx to the Boardroom” with Laura Rowley last year.