How do you get rid of desire?
After people get what they want, almost everyone wants more. This can be a driving force for a builder, when one project ending cues the need to start another. For Jared Solomon, the main character in this month’s cover story, it led to the courtroom.
Solomon was a commercial leasing broker at Vornado Realty Trust with a portfolio that included the LED billboard at 1540 Broadway in Times Square. By the middle of his career, Solomon had a salary in the mid-six figures and a home in the suburbs. Then he took the commission for a tenant broker on the other side of a $4.5 million deal he did for the sign — except there was no tenant broker. There was just Solomon, with a fake name, fake company and real bank account.
With the money (he did this more than once), he bought luxury homes and joined a Westchester country club.
One of the prosecutors in his federal trial diagnosed the problem.
“The defendant had a good job. He was making good money. But he just wanted more,” she said.
Read the piece to take in the heist, including how one of the city’s largest commercial landlords got hoodwinked like Initech in “Office Space.”
Resi behemoth Compass grew larger in January when its merger with Anywhere Real Estate closed. Just over three months later, the executive game of musical chairs at the combined firm has paused, giving our reporters a chance to deliver a feature story on the new shape of the company.
The Real Deal’s journalists also profile two West Coast candidates whose races have implications for real estate.
California State Senator Scott Wiener, who came up alongside the YIMBY movement, is seeking Nancy Pelosi’s seat in Congress. Although he’s been remarkably successful with bills, laws and policy, he starts his journey east burned by an unusual paradox: His paperwork hasn’t yet turned California into a bastion of new, affordable housing, and if he wins, he’ll be among representatives whose states have done more to solve a housing crisis. Get to know him in our story.
In Los Angeles, fuel from the Palisades Fire led former reality TV villain Spencer Pratt to run for mayor. Pratt, who lost his home to the blazes, has a platform long on grievances with the status quo and little official experience, yet he’s managed to pull into second place in polls and fundraising totals, in part by channeling the dissatisfaction of brokers and developers. Go inside his quixotic campaign here. Primaries for both races are on June 2.
In Florida, Lidia Dinkova profiles the principals of Oak Row, two New Yorkers whose good timing and private backing lifted them up the ladder from small-timers to a team that could pick up a record $520 million Brickell development site. On the western side of the state, Naples now has listings, prices and new development to rival Miami and Palm Beach; Katherine Kallergis explains what to know about the market.
In Texas, succession at a family firm threatens the $1 billion expansion of Fort Worth’s Stockyards; Jess Hardin unwinds the drama here.
In California, a tech titan from the top-level web-domain-name world is snapping up downtown discounts on commercial and retail space in Los Angeles and San Diego.
In New York, the slow dealmaking in recently rezoned Midtown South gives a sense of why developers aren’t rushing to turn former Garment District buildings into projects that are tall, dense and residential.
And, in the Chicago area, a Frank Lloyd Wright home goes on the market, shedding light on the niche world of preserving not just historic homes but also their value.
Maybe all these stories leave you desiring more? We’ll publish another magazine next month.
Enjoy the issue!