Two Manhattan-based boutique real estate firms — one residential, one commercial — have joined forces to take advantage of growth in (where else?) Brooklyn. Leslie J. Garfield, which specializes in townhouse and carriage house sales, and Sierra Realty Corporation, which works smaller-size retail and office leasing, officially launched in late April the acronym-heavy LGS/BKLYN.
The joint venture opened its office at Ninth Street and Sixth Avenue in Park Slope on May 16. “We were talking about this, and somebody said, ‘Get a life, move to Brooklyn,'” said Thomas McAteer, executive managing director of the new venture, himself a Manhattan ex-pat recently resettled in Brooklyn. “The market is very encouraging out here.”
LGS/BKLYN will broker, manage and lease retail, with an emphasis on the two firms’ traditional focuses — Garfield’s residential and commercial townhouse sales and Sierra’s leasing, management and investment sales. Last year, Sierra closed 26 office leases covering 126,000 square feet; the firm also closed nine retail leases.
Garfield earlier this year brokered the record purchase of the Duke Semans Mansion at 1009 Fifth Avenue for a reported $40 million.
Garfield managing partner Jed Garfield and Sierra president James Wacht, both Upper East Side residents, knew each other before the venture launched, McAteer said. The firms’ Manhattan operations will remain separate.