Jay Sugarman

NEW YORK CITY–Safety, Income & Growth (SAFE) is carving out a niche for itself in the commercial real estate community with its focus on ground leases. A ground lease, of course generally represents ownership of the underlying land. The land is typically net leased on a long-term basis by the landlord to a tenant who owns and operates the property. During a typical ground lease contract, a landlord collects ground rent payments, including contractual escalations and/or percentage rent payments during the lease term. Once the lease has expired or the tenant defaults, the landlord continues to own the land. Ground leases are often extended throughout the lease term.

The reason SAFE is focusing on this piece of the CRE ecosystem, as CEO Jay Sugarman explains to GlobeSt.com, is that “ground leases generates low-risk returns with the potential for a considerable capital appreciation.”

“By utilizing a ground lease, our clients lower their capital in order to generate higher returns compared to traditional commercial real estate financing,” he says.