NEW YORK CITY- The legacies of the Durst, Olshan and Silverstein real estate families in New York City is what “Hollywood is to Los Angeles,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail leasing and sales division at Prudential Douglas Elliman. Consolo moderated the New York Commercial Real Estate Women’s Network’s “The Women Leading NY’s Real Estate Families” panel discussion Thursday evening in Midtown. The event featured NYCrew’s major players in the market, including Helena Durst, VP of The Durst Organization; Andrea Olshan, COO of Mall Properties Inc. and Lisa Silverstein, SVP of Silverstein Properties.
With several major deals and development activities in the pipeline, these leading ladies are constantly juggling life at home and in the office--and all agreed the two sectors often overlap. “There is a different challenge for a woman who is a mother in balancing work and family, which we have to do on a 24/7 basis, but we just get used to it,” Silverstein said, explaining that “making it work” is her business mantra. She added that women in business must be motivated to succeed in spite of personal and professional challenges.
Silverstein oversees the firm’s hotel and residential real estate portfolio, including current major projects such as rebuilding of the World Trade Center and the Four Seasons Hotel and Residences in Lower Manhattan. She said the completion of the luxury hotel and the WTC Memorial Plaza is expected to be finalized by the 10th anniversary of 9/11 this year. “The timing will make sense because of the market there and the demand that will be there,” Silverstein said. “I am very excited about bringing that type of quality and luxury Downtown – certainly after the last 10 years. It will be really wonderful.”
On the policy front, Durst’s latest passion is the revitalization of New York City’s waterfront. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s three-year, $3.3-billion plan to spur development along 520 miles of shoreline here, Durst said that, as president of New York Water Taxi, she is working with city and state officials to advance waterborne transportation like ferries and boats back to the five boroughs. She noted that people “who have turned their backs on the waterfront” need to reconsider it as a viable transportation option to alleviate traffic and reduce the city’s carbon footprint. “We try to leave the world a better place,” Durst said, describing her family’s impact on the city as a whole. “I try to leave a positive imprint in everything that I do, and that includes the business we are trying to do and the business we are trying to create.”
Durst, a fourth generation member of the organization famous for One Bryant Park and 4 Times Square in Midtown, she has worked to implement a comprehensive greening of the company’s operations, including resource conservation, improving landfill diversion rates and eco-friendly cleaning practices. “With my father’s imprint on this New York City skyline, in greening the skyline, we are able to do that.”
On the retail side, Manhattan’s market recovery has been faster than anywhere else in the country despite of a “level of uncertainty” nationwide, Olshan said. Responsible for MPI’s portfolio, investments and operations, she has seen the company develop or acquire more than $2 billion of retail, residential, hotel and office assets during her tenure.
But family comes first, she said, describing the Parkchester development in the Bronx as one of her family’s proudest achievements. Originally constructed by MetLife in the late 1930s as middle-income rental housing on 130-acres, the 171-building complex was converted into two separate condominiums in 1995 by private owners. After the property fell into neglect, MPI purchased the property in 1998 and poured $250 million toward rehabilitation of the condos and the neighborhood over a six-year period.
“It was such a great thing that my father did for New York,” Olshan said, describing the location as a hub for the Bronx’s working and middle class families. “It’s a wonderful thing to do for the city. It’s the total opposite story of Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town. It’s doing well, while doing good.”
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