UPDATED, 5:50 p.m., March 11: Jim Gricar, the president of Halstead Property, is leaving the residential brokerage at the end of the month, The Real Deal has learned.
Sources indicated that his contract was up at the end of the month but was not renewed.
“It is with a mix of sadness but also excitement about the future that I write to you today. I will be leaving Halstead when my contract expires,” Gricar wrote in an email circulated to Halstead agents and staff around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday. “We’ve had fun, made money and most importantly, helped thousands of our clients move in or move on.”
About an hour later, Halstead’s higher ups sent a memo wishing Gricar well in future endeavors.
“As you are aware, Jim Gricar will be leaving the firm at the end of the month,” according to a copy of the memo, which was reviewed by TRD. “We thank him for all of his years of service and we wish him the best.” The memo was sent from David Burris, Kent Swig, Arthur Zeckendorf and William Zeckendorf, co-chairmen of Halstead parent company Terra Holdings, as well as Terra COO Alan Kersner.
Gricar was named president in 2013, when Halstead CEO Diane Ramirez became the firm’s first-ever chief executive officer. Ramirez had been president of Halstead for 14 years after co-founding the firm in 1984 with Clark Halstead. The brokerage was acquired in 2001 by Terra Holdings, which also owns New York City brokerage Brown Harris Stevens and Vanderbilt Holdings, a financial services firm that brokers residential mortgages.
Halstead is the third-largest brokerage in Manhattan with more than 720 agents, according to TRD‘s most recent ranking, which was published in May of last year. At that time, Halstead had $666 million in listings.
A Cleveland native, Gricar moved to New York to be an actor in 1989. He joined the Corcoran Group in 1998 and later jumped to Brown Harris Stevens, where he handled a number of deals in Zeckendorf Development’s 15 Central Park West, including the sale of the penthouse to former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill. (Weill later sold the pad for $88 million.)
According to the memo, Ramirez will continue to lead the brokerage. Richard Grossman, executive vice president and senior managing director, will also remain in his role.
“Our Agents have always been our top priority,” the memo states. “We are financially committed to the strong, strategic growth of Halstead Property.”
Last year, Halstead purchased boutique real estate firm REAction International, a firm on 57th Street that was founded by Ellie Wald. The move came about a year after Halstead acquired the assets of Aguayo Real Estate Group, a boutique Brooklyn brokerage and development firm. Last year, Halstead was the first Manhattan brokerage to open an office in Bedford-Stuyvesant