Brian Katz, Daniel DePasquale win REBNY’s top retail deal award

A massive Brooklyn lease inked by an Atlanta-based flooring company earned the industry’s top prize for retail dealmaking on Wednesday night.

Brian Katz and Daniel D. DePasquale of Katz & Associates won the Real Estate Board of New York’s Retail Most Ingenious Retail Deal of the Year award for Floor & Decor’s 129,000-square-foot lease at 850 Third Avenue in Sunset Park.

The retailer signed the lease for its first New York City location at the former Bed Bath & Beyond in May.

“We had to navigate a second floor space with lower ceilings, and their concept is hard surface flooring, so they’re pushing slabs of floor onto forklifts and delivering them into contractors and customers trucks,” Katz said at the trade group’s annual awards ceremony at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery at the Empire State Building.

“We had to navigate freight elevators, delivery, customer pickups and all the components of that in this multi-story industrial building for a company that’s based in Atlanta and has never done a deal in New York City,” he said.

The winner was selected by three judges – a landlord, tenant and attorney – and is based solely on ingenuity rather than rent size or location.

The award for Most Impactful Retail Deal of the Year went to Cushman & Wakefield’s Alan Schmerzler and Sean Moran and CBRE’s Stephen C. Sjurset and Duane Davis for Lidl’s 23,000-square-foot lease at MAG Partners’ 335 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea.

Peter Marino of Peter Marino Architect won the Retail Development/Project of the Year Award for the redesign of Tiffany & Co’s Landmark Fifth Avenue flagship.

“As a developer, the retail sector is really special in my heart,” REBNY chairman Jed Walentas said to a crowd of brokers. “To me, the retail piece of our puzzles is really the part that the public engages with long term. When we finish buildings, whether they’re residential or commercial, people go to work, people live there, they’re upstairs, and whatever retail we choose is the public’s identity with all our work.”