Upclose With Stroock & Stroock & Lavan’s Trevor Adler

NEW YORK CITY—At just 37, Trevor Adler has paved an impressive path as a partner in Stroock’s national real estate group. He has developed a substantial commercial leasing practice, while also being tasked with coordinating Stroock’s national leasing practice among its offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Miami.

Leasing is now a core strength of Stroock’s Real Estate team, with Adler in particular handling highly complex commercial lease transactions, notably for clients seeking large amounts of office space. Recent representations include Edward J. Minskoff Equities in the lease-up of 51 Astor Place and 1166 Avenue of the Americas, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York this year in negotiating a 30-year headquarters occupancy transaction for 308,000 square feet of space at 220 E 42nd St. and various transactions for 21st Century Fox, Barnard College, Broadridge Financial Solutions, the City University of New York, the Guggenheim Museum and Saks & Co.

Adler advises clients in commercial real estate matters, with a particular emphasis on complex leasing transactions. He has expertise in negotiating leases, subleases, licenses, construction contracts and acquisition agreements for office, retail, co-working, non-profit and educational space in New York City and nationally on behalf of major landlords, tenants, purchasers, sellers, managers and principals. Staying abreast of industry changes is inherent to the job and Adler has developed a more recent specialization working with flexible workplace providers, one of the fastest-growing segments of the office space market. He and colleagues at Stroock have negotiated leases and licenses with a growing number of flexible workplace providers on both coasts, including several with WeWork, one of the world’s largest providers of shared office space.

Outside the office, Adler is a member of the executive committee of the Board of Directors of Broadway Housing Communities, Inc., an affordable housing not-for-profit organization.  Most recently, he assisted with the completion of the Sugar Hill Project, which leverages the success of Broadway Housing Communities’ integrated model of pairing permanent affordable housing with early education, educational advocacy, and access to the arts.  The 191,000-square-foot mixed-use Sugar Hill Project, designed by globally renowned architect David Adjaye and located in Upper Manhattan’s Sugar Hill historic district on 155th Street, features 124 affordable apartments, a 11,000-square-foot preschool, a community art gallery, a seasonal green market and the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling.

He is also the lead pro bono counsel to IMPACCT Brooklyn (formerly the Pratt Area Community Counsel), an advocate, educator and catalyst for helping residents build flourishing communities in the Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights neighborhoods.  For more than seven years, Trevor has represented both landlords and tenants on behalf of IMPACCT Brooklyn in the negotiation of commercial leases in Brooklyn, and he leads four commercial leasing workshops per year sponsored by IMPACCT Brooklyn to provide small business owners with a basic understanding of how to negotiate a commercial lease.

Before graduating from law school, he was the operations-security manager at real estate firm Koeppel Companies LLC, where he planned and supervised security systems and operations at 575 Lexington Avenue and 26 Broadway in Manhattan. He gained both an appreciation of, and a fascination with, the real estate industry through this experience, and he continues to use the knowledge of building operations, access control and security systems that he gained while working for Koeppel Companies to assist his clients.

Real estate is also in his blood. His father and his father’s side of the family have been involved in New York City real estate for generations. His great-great-grandfather, Abraham Koeppel, immigrated to the US in 1870 and became a developer of residential properties in Brooklyn. In the 1940s, his great-grandfather and great-uncle, Max and Harry Koeppel, joined the family business (initially named Koeppel & Koeppel and then renamed Koeppel Companies by the next generation of family members to run the business, which includes Trevor’s father, Ed Adler) and shifted the companies, geography to Manhattan, investing and managing both apartment and office towers.

When asked about his goals, he tells GlobeSt.com that short-term, he is constantly on the lookout for new opportunities and ways in which innovative deal structures may help clients. He seeks to increase the visibility and recognition of Stroock’s national leasing practice through hard work on behalf of the firm’s clients.

As for his long-term goals, he says it is to include an effort to deepen and broaden his understanding of trends in the real estate market so as to keep his clients informed of the latest developments and opportunities. To do this, he keeps in regular contact with other real estate professionals at some of the most prestigious owners, developers and brokerage firms.

By developing strong working relationships with his clients and peers, he seeks the opportunity of connecting the contacts in his network with one another in order to make new deals and to forge new partnerships and ventures.

When asked about how young professionals are changing the industry in terms of approach to business or deal making, Adler says that young CRE pros are entering a landscape that’s seeing rapid change (such as the co-working and retail sectors), largely driven by advances in technology, and it’s imperative for them to operate at the cutting edge and be prepared to handle any issues that these changes raise.

In his leasing work in particular, every day he encounters issues like retail stores “going dark”, the increased prevalence of distributed antenna systems, management company and tenant portals, open office plans and co-working arrangements. “These each create their own sets of challenges and require an ever-expanding knowledge base,” he says. “They’re integral to practicing in commercial real estate today, which was not necessarily the case 10 or even five years ago.”

As technology continues to advance and the CRE industry continues to evolve at an ever-increasing pace (such as with the most recent round of rent regulation and environmental legislation), he says that “it’s incumbent on young lawyers to ensure they’re staying ahead of the curve. Balancing the daily demands of a job in CRE and keeping abreast of the latest news and trends is a tall, but necessary, order.”

GlobeSt.com’s first ever “People to Watch” series is highlighting individuals across all disciplines of commercial real estate who have and are continuing to make an impact on the industry. Stay tuned for many more profiles from tomorrow’s leaders.