From the August issue: Ariel Schuster is a vice chairman at the retail brokerage, where he handles leases for some of the largest chain stores in the city, including the Gap and Pret a Manger. His clients also include landlords such as SL Green Realty, the Winter Organization and Premier Equities. The 38-year-old executive negotiated more than 260,000 square feet of retail space in 2015, according to RKF.
In the first half of 2016, he set a personal record with 43 lease deals. One of his biggest transactions of the past two years was signing the Gap and Old Navy to a combined 79,000-square-foot space at 1514 Broadway in Times Square in June 2015. Schuster was born in Israel and moved to Manhattan at 10 years old. He studied marketing and finance at Tulane University in New Orleans. After his college graduation, a family friend took him to ICSC’s RECon convention in Las Vegas, where he was drawn to real estate. He spent six months at the New York commercial brokerage the Lansco Corporation and moved over to RKF in 2001. [more]