The world according to Stefan

He puts a new spin on the real estate conglomerate.

Soloviev Group Chairman Stefan Soloviev’s holdings span farms, wineries, single-family home builders, a major office tower, and a proposed casino complex in Manhattan.

Soloviev, 48, isn’t your average real estate billionaire. He’s built an agricultural empire across the West, and is the country’s 26th-largest landowner according to the Land Report. He arrived at The Real Deal’s New York Forum last May in a Weskan Grain t-shirt with a bandage on his hand – he’d cut it helping load a 110-car freight train, which he called “the most significant achievement of my life.”  

Not a typical pastime for a real estate titan. But Soloviev has a powerful industry pedigree. 

Soloviev’s father, Sheldon Solow, built one of New York’s most prestigious real estate empires, starting with an apartment building in Far Rockaway and culminating with 9 West 57th Street. He built a reputation as one of the industry’s toughest, most litigious dealmakers.

When Solow died at 92 in 2020, it all went to Stefan. The succession story has been playing out ever since.

Soloviev sold off big chunks of the Solow portfolio, but he isn’t abandoning the city. In fact, he now deals closer to New York than he has for a long time, with a focus on the North Fork of Long Island, where one of his sons is building wineries and homes.

Reporter Harrison Connery’s story uncorks his day-to-day life below.

Soloviev has held on to some of his father’s most iconic assets.

At a time when office is out, 9 West 57th is in enough demand that an investment firm swooped in to lease three floors out from a blue-chip tenant. The high-end office property is more than 90 percent full and demands rents well over $100 per square foot.  

The demand hasn’t come easy. Soloviev invested $45 million in upgrades to the building, which was built in 1974, adding a 11,000 square-foot fitness center among other amenities.

Solow was notoriously picky about who could lease at 9 West, sometimes keeping the building 50 percent vacant rather than admitting tenants he didn’t want.

Soloviev wants a less adversarial relationship. 

“I met with [the new tenants] personally for a long time and it will be a great relationship going forward,” he told TRD. 

And then there’s Freedom Plaza. Soloviev inherited the largest undeveloped site in Manhattan – more than six acres between East 38th and 41st Streets near the United Nations. His father bought the land for $600 million from Con Ed in 2000 and it has sat empty since. 

Now the company is making a bid for one of three downstate casino licenses. All the downstate bids are longshots, but if this one wins, the site will become an expansive complex with the casino, a hotel, retail, a “democracy museum” and 1,325 apartments, 40 percent of them affordable.

Soloviev has a secret weapon he hopes can make it all happen – former detective and current Soloviev Group CEO Michael Hershman. Connery profiles Hershman’s rise to the top of the company.

 It’s all a big challenge for Soloviev. But he doesn’t seem intimidated.

“I don’t think about, ‘What if I lose?’” Soloviev told the audience at TRD’s May Forum. 

“I try not to lose.”