| Grubb & Ellis beefed up its retail brokerage presence with a significant Madison Avenue acquisition, but it's not luxury ground-floor digs. It's the team of Pat Breslin, Andrew Connolly and Kenny Yip from GVA Williams (now Williams Real Estate, but you knew that). Pat, a 22-year industry vet, will head up the East Coast Retail Group, while Andrew and Kenny have settled in as managing director and financial analyst/associate. The additions extend the firm's reach north to the Canadian border and south to Puerto Rico. Although it looks daunting on paper, Pat says Grubb & Ellis can afford to be aggressive considering it's not holding the debt load of some competing brokerages. The agenda now is to travel to the new markets and get the expansion rolling. |
| And now, sage advice from Andrew: Make sure you understand your client's line of business before offering space. He admitted he once suggested exec-heavy Downtown and Midtown to a tenant, only to realize later they said "Thai," not "tie." As for Pat, he tells us NYC retail is holding strong. Even though certain tenants are exercising caution, there's competition for space, sometimes requiring three days of pounding pavement for a client. Leasing has slowed, but solid retailers are weathering the storm. By way of example: Victoria's Secret recently inked a $100M deal in SoHo. Though we'd argue they're more silk retailer than solid. |
| This week, the trio heads to Florida. No, they're not the world's youngest snowbirds. Kenny and Andrew are on a dragon boat racing team and will be competing in an event at Disney. Pat's skipping the House of Mouse for business in Miami but is contemplating driving up to Orlando afterwards. Bisnow words of advice, Pat: Unless you're a traffic masochist, find a puddle jumper plane. Then again, he probably doesn't need tips from us. He's leased over 5M SF and $2B worth of retail deals in his career, anywhere from 600 SF to 600,000. |
Team Building!
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Related Topics:
Andrew Connolly
, East Coast Retail Group
, GVA Williams
, Kenny Yip
, Pat Breslin
, Williams Real Estate
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