Armed for
W hatever Comes
At CBRE’s New York operation,
there is strength—and versatility, talent
You can tack on a big question mark after you write the year 2012. Given the many and often-interrelated
issues the industry—and on a macro-level,
the country—faces, no one can say for sure
where the year will end. The consensus
seems to indicate progress over 2011 . . . if the
jobs continue to mount, if the global debt
crisis doesn’t further complicate the stateside lending picture and DC politicos finally
do something for the American people.
New York City certainly isn’t immune to
such threats, but it is certainly best prepared
on a national
comparison to
sustain any
punches these
various threats could deliver. And given the
hope of the improving economy, CBRE’s
New York Tri-State Region is poised to reap
the most from the upturn.
In Manhattan alone, the firm totaled
870 employees, including 205 salespeople,
at the end of 2011, when it handled 27. 9
million square feet of office leases. For the
tri-state area, that figure balloons to 41. 1
million feet. Real Estate Forum caught
up with some of CBRE’s regional brain
trust to gain some insight on how the firm
stays ahead of the curve, and what they see
coming next.
“There’s a great deal of confusion as to
what the market will be in 2012,” says
Stephen Siegel, chairman of global broker-
age at the firm. “I happen to think it’s going
to be okay. It’s not going to be a soaring mar-
ket but it’s going to be flat or better.”
Siegel was involved in a number of nota-
ble 2011 transactions, including the 20-year,
125,000-square-foot lease for MSCI Inc. that
brought 7 World Trade Center to full occu-
pancy. And he was there for law firm
Zukerman Gore Brandeis & Crossman’s
lease at 11 Times Square (where, a year
By Carl Gaines
and longevity—in numbers
before, he helped broker Proskauer Rose’s
406,000 square foot, 20-year lease.) At both
properties, Siegel represented the landlord.
The deals were transformative in their own
way and spoke to the appeal of LEED-certified, state-of-the-art construction.
With an eye to the future, Siegel says that
the young people entering the workforce
now may be among the last generation to
start their careers in buildings that are not
LEED certified and green—inside and out.
“My biggest appeal to law firms when I’m
selling or leasing new assets is that you’re
making a mistake if you go into any old
building,” he says. “Even if your interior is
LEED certified, with bamboo and other sus-
tainable materials, it’s not the same thing
because you really can’t pump in fresh air.
It’s a different environment and for your
own sake, for recruitment sake, you should
be looking at LEED-certified buildings.”
Speaking of recruitment, it’s what tal-
ent—new and existing—brings to the table
that’s at the heart of a firm’s success. And at
CBRE, nothing trumps human capital. Mary
Ann Tighe, CBRE’s Tri-State CEO, says that
“our people infrastructure is the magic of
this operation.” And her team of colleagues
“has such depth of knowledge. We can
answer pretty much any kind of real estate
question and we can come up with things
that other people can’t, because the collec-
tive intelligence and experience of this
group is very powerful.”
Finding and fostering new talent is an
important part of any successful busi-
ness—at least any business that plans to
carry present successes into the future. At
CBRE, much of this responsibility falls on
the shoulders of Matt Van Buren, who was
promoted to president of the New York
Tri-State region last August after filling the
spot on an interim basis. Believe it or not,
he says, “One of the challenges when
you’re a large shop is the recruitment of
new talent. But we set out to improve our
talent by recruiting.” To illustrate, Van
Buren cites the addition of former
Newmark Knight Frank retail broker
Amira Yunis, who joined CBRE in
November 2011 along with some NKF col-
leagues. “That’s an example of real prog-
ress,” he adds. “It had been a while since
we added talent of that caliber. That’s
going to continue.”
Also with the aim of securing the firm’s
future, Van Buren says CBRE has just gradu-
ated another class from its Wheel Program,
which exposes top candidates right out of
college to all parts of the business for 18
months to two years. Those graduates are
then integrated into parts of the firm. “Each
summer we have about 40 interns that come
into our tri-state business and that’s been a
tremendous source of talent,” he says.
26 REAL ESTATE FORUM FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012
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