Auto Row lease earns NGKF brokers “Most Ingenious” retail deal award

Goldman, Goldmacher take home top REBNY prize for Jaguar/Land Rover lease at 787 11th

787 11th Avenue (inset: Neil Goldmacher and Brian Goldman)
787 11th Avenue (inset: Neil Goldmacher and Brian Goldman)

When longtime Newmark Grubb Knight Frank broker Brian Goldman did a deal with Porsche for a new dealership on Automobile Row a few years ago, he could see the writing on the wall: The gritty stretch of 11th Avenue on the Far West Side was rapidly changing.

So when he told the owner of the neighborhood’s Jaguar and Land Rover dealership that it was likely their home at 787 11th Avenue would some day be put up for sale, he already had the inside track to what would eventually become an award-worthy deal.

“The fact that I told them it was going to happen and it actually came true further added credibility to what I was doing,” said Goldman, who along with colleague Neil Goldmacher earned the Real Estate Board of New York’s coveted “Most Ingenious Retail Deal of the Year” award for the 25-year, 225,000-square-foot lease they negotiated on behalf of the dealerships.

After securing a new home for Porsche at 711 11th Avenue back in 2014, Goldman felt it was just a matter of time before 787 11th’s owner, the Ford Motor Company, would put its massive, 464,000-square-foot building on the market, he told the Wall Street Journal.

Jaguar and Land Rover, which Ford sold to Tata Motors in 2008, actually bid on the building, but came in $25 million short of the $250 million the Georgetown Company and an investment fund headed by Bill Ackman eventually plopped down.

So when it became clear they’d have to negotiate with new ownership, the Newmark brokers went out and lined up six possible new locations in case the landlords pushed them out. That foresight played a big part in the minds of the REBNY judges.

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“It’s unprecedented in our business to see something like that,” Ripco Real Estate’s Andrew Mandell, who chairs REBNY’s retail committee, told the Journal.

CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe, who represented the building owners along with Evan Haskell, said the negotiations were not “starting from a happy place,” in part because the dealerships had lost out on the building.

But in the end the two sides came up with a plan that dovetailed with Ackman’s vision for the Raphael Vinoly designed overhaul, and the backup locations Goldman identified will be used for the dealership’s Nissan and Infinity showroosm.

“That certainly is a boon for the brand,” Goldman told the newspaper.

In another blockbuster deal, Eric Gelber of CBRE won the “Most Significant Retail Deal of the Year” award for negotiating Foot Locker’s move from the Times Square bow tie to 36,000 square feet at 1460 Broadway owned by Himmel + Meringoff and the Swig Company. [WSJ] — Rich Bockmann