Eklund starts Scandinavian development firm

Douglas Elliman power broker Fredrik Eklund is no stranger to the luxury real estate market in his native Sweden — having owned and operated a Stockholm-based brokerage, Eklund Stockholm New York, for the past four years. Now the “Million Dollar Listing New York” star is taking what he calls the next natural step: teaming up with three partners to form a development company, Superstructure, also in Stockholm.

Eklund’s partners at Superstructure include top Swedish broker Niklas Berntzon as well as entertainment and advertising executives Sven Gustafsson and Johan Kindblom. The venture will focus exclusively on the Scandinavian market, particularly Stockholm and Oslo. The firm already has two projects poised for launch, though Eklund declined to provide a specific time frame.

The smaller will be a hotel, residential condominium and retail hybrid occupying a full city block in central Stockholm. The larger of the two projects, which Superstructure will undertake in partnership with another developer, will be located in a new neighborhood outside Stockholm, inspired by old warehouses in New York’s Meatpacking District that have been converted to residential properties and restaurants.

Eklund said there’s an appetite for New York-style residential development in Scandinavia. But he and his partners will no doubt have their work cut out for them in a city where many of the buildings are designated historic landmarks. Finding development-friendly sites there, particularly large ones, will be a challenge, Eklund admitted. “[But] there is a real demand because there are not enough such developments,” he said.

The new venture also means Eklund will be going toe-to-toe with developers whom he’s represented as a broker with Eklund Stockholm New York. But Eklund said he sees that more as an opportunity than as an obstacle. “When you have a site, an idea of what you want to do there, you can work with the competition,” he said.