Largo, an upstate New York–based commercial real estate finance firm, has tapped industry veteran Sam Giarrusso to head its first New York City office, which opened last month at 110 East 55th Street.
Founded in 1989, Largo is headquartered in Getzville, N.Y., and has offices in Albany, as well as Florida and Toronto, Canada. Over the years, the firm has arranged more than $10 billion of commercial real estate loans, often for insurance companies like ING, Symetra Financial and Great-West Life, according to company founder Gary Coscia.
But since the real estate downturn, lenders have preferred primary markets, like New York City, to the tertiary markets, like upstate New York and Canada, where Largo has long specialized, Coscia said.
Largo’s new, 2,500-square-foot Manhattan office will give the firm access to a broader pool of potential clients and lenders, Coscia said.
“I don’t mean to criticize upstate New York,” he said, “but we need access to more life insurance–type lenders, and the [New York City] metropolitan area has them.”
Coscia knows entering the Manhattan market won’t be easy. Right now, “our average loan size is about $15 million, but we expect that to rise significantly,” he said. But he’s confident in the leadership team: Giarrusso, who will head the office along with Largo managing director Joseph Sforzo, previously served for 14 years as head of commercial real estate at M&T Bank, overseeing a $6 billion portfolio.
“Through my years in this business,” Giarrusso told The Real Deal, he’s worked with “most of the high-end real estate protagonists here in the city.”