WHITE PLAINS, NY-In a vote of confidence for the suburbs of New York City, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank has hired three senior level brokers for its Westchester and Connecticut offices, the company announced on Monday. The firm added former longtime Cushman & Wakefield brokers Gregory Frisoli, Glenn Walsh and Lawrence (Larry) Ruggieri.
Frisoli and Walsh are now executive managing directors at NGKF while Ruggieri joins the firm as a senior managing director. The company is growing its ranks across the board, notes a spokeswoman, and it's hedging its bets on these suburban communities primarily because—like most decisions in real estate—their location is key, Frisoli tells GlobeSt.com.
“The importance of Westchester and Fairfield is their proximity to Manhattan; they're due north,” he says. “These areas are part of New York. People in New York City offices live in these areas—including our executives—and in New Jersey and on Long Island, so there's an emphasis on the tri-state area.”
Having a presence in these bedroom communities can help to “attract and retain talent,” says Frisoli. In fact, he says, that's not really a new phenomenon. “There's always been an interest in how a company can move out of the higher priced market of the city to lower cost areas nearby.”
There's also a faction of corporate users who look to the burbs for an additional location, Frisoli notes. “If you look at tenants who have locations in Westchester and Fairfield county, they have offices in New York City too. So it's not that they all are moving to the suburbs, it could be a company starting a new business venture that the firm thinks would be better in the suburbs, or maybe they want multiple offices.”
Though there's no specific headcount NGKF is looking to reach, the firm is looking to continue hiring for these outlying offices, Frisoli says. Among the landlords the firm has represented in the area are Building Land & Technology, for a total of 1.4 million square feet in Stamford, CT at BLT Financial Centre, 260/292 Long Ridge Road and the proposed Gateway Harbor Point, as well as George Comfort & Sons' four-building, 676,000-square-foot Centre at Purchase in Westchester County, according to the announcement.
The new team brings over five million square feet of leasing agencies with owners such as RPW Group; Heyman Properties; RXR Realty; Simone Development; ProMed Properties; Celestial Capital; Faros Properties; Juster Development Corporation; and AmTrust Realty.Together the leasing agents have maintained occupancy rates of 90% or higher for their owners on properties ranging from vacant buildings to large portfolios. Tenants they have represented include Montefiore Medical Center, Pernod Ricard USA, Diversified Investment Advisors, Sun Products and Kraft Foods.
On Monday the Wall Street Journal characterized the hirings as a victory by NGKF in a battle for talent against C&W. The paper also indicated that the trio of top performers left Cushman because they were seeking more autonomy. Walsh told the paper that Cushman was “very frustrating” because neither he nor the others approved of how leasing assignments were made. Frisoli wouldn't go so far as to confirm the article but did say it was “good.”
A spokeswoman notes that NGKF has been in hiring mode for some time, indicating there was no recent row between the two companies. C&W reiterated to GlobeSt.com a comment it made to the Journal: “Those who departed wanted control over our business in this important market," says Jim Underhill, CEO of C&W, the Americas, "and we weren't willing to subcontract our full service platform to a handful of brokers.”
According to the announcement, Frisoli has negotiated several of the Westchester/Fairfield market's most significant leases and sales during his 19-year career. Frisoli has served as exclusive leasing agent for high-profile buildings in White Plains and Tarrytown, NY as well as Stamford and Westport, CT. He represents corporate clients locally and in multi-market transactions, with an additional focus on medical office leasing.
Glenn Walsh has a 25-year record in Westchester county commercial real estate, with an emphasis on corporate and portfolio leasing, as well as property sales, representing both buyers and sellers in the Tarrytown and White Plains areas. Walsh previously spent six years with the former Newmark & Company Real Estate, a forerunner of NGKF.
Larry Ruggieri has concentrated on tenant and landlord representation, corporate relocations, expansions and consolidations in Westchester for the past 13 years. He too was previously an associate of Newmark and Co.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
