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 10^th 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.”