TF Cornerstone expanding, moving to new headquarters.
The real estate development and investment firm TF Cornerstone is relocating its headquarters to about 35,000 s/f at 387 Park Avenue South, a building owned and operated by the company.TF Cornerstone is the firm the brothers Tom and Fred Elghanayan created to oversee the holdings they carved from Rockrose Development, the real estate empire they built for four decades with their older brother Henry and then split up late last year.
TF Cornerstone emerged from the breakup with most of the commercial office buildings and a portion of Rockrose's collection of residential properties and development sites. Henry Elghanayan received the Roekrose name, part of the company's residential portfolio and most of its land parcels. The split has been described as cordial and was decided, according reports at the time, by the flip of a coin.
One of the few office properties Henry did receive in the split however was 290 Park Avenue South, where Rockrose had its headquarters. TF Cornerstone continued to operate at the location, but Chip Sealy, the firm's vice president of commercial leasing, said that the company recently decided to relocate to the space at 387 Park Avenue South because it will allow the firm to expand.
"We're growing by almost 7,000 square feet," said Sealy, who oversees deal making in the company's office portfolio, including the high-end boutique building, Carnegie Hall Tower. "We're gearing up to take advantage of the marketplace. We have residential development and commercial acquisitions going on. Right now we're putting added staff in place to have the resources to be able to grow."
Scaly said that the company will occupy 387 Park Avenue South's entire seventh floor and most of the sixth, a floor it will likely fill entirely after leases expire for the small pocket of remaining space on the floor occupied by other tenants.
He said that TF Cornerstone is already in the middle of arranging two potential commercial acquisitions, one here in Manhattan, the other in Washington, D.C.
A New York Times article describing the breakup between the brothers last year indicated that Tom and Fred were surprised by Henry's decision to take the bulk of the company's development sites rather than its commercial buildings, a part of the company's portfolio that he had been most active managing. The article indicated that Henry wanted the sites so his son, Justin, who is in his early 30s and active in the family business, could have a pipeline of future development projects to work on.
The split created some unexpected, but happy, realignments. Fred, for instance, always was the brother who focused on construction and, with the formidable construction department he built while at Rockrose, handled the task of erecting the thousands of residential units the brothers developed over the years. After the split, more oversight over the commercial portfolio has fallen under his responsibility and he's responded by putting together plans that utilize his expertise.
"Walling through the buildings we own, Fred saw some areas that he discussed improving and now we're exploring several renovation projects," Scaly said. "He has a different and refreshing angle on things."
Scaly said that TF Cornerstone is still putting together its plans on which buildings it is going to renovate and what type of improvements will be made but said that it would likely include significant upgrades to important building systems along with lobby and facade work.
Tom meanwhile has continued to work on acquisitions, an area of the business that has been his longtime focus, and is overseeing the company's two possible purchases.
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"Tom is a deal junky," Scaly said. "He's an accountant by training so he can look at a building and the economics of the deal and pretty quickly figure out whether it works or not."
Scaly said that the characterization of the split as amicable was entirely accurate.
"There was no bad blood between the brothers, just different visions of where they wanted to go," Scaly said. "Everyone is still going to see each other at Thanksgiving."
Sealy appeared excited at the prospect of receiving more property to potentially lease, but has kept busy keeping TF Cornerstone's current portfolio of commercial property nearly completely full in the meantime.
He recently helped oversee a roughly 6,000 s/f deal at Carnegie Hall Tower, the crown jewel of TF Cornerstone's commercial portfolio. The building, which is considered among the most prestigious in midtown, is a draw for successful boutique investment firms.
"These firms find a lot of value in being at a location where they are bundled together and can interact," Sealy explained. "A lot of the tenants in the building (which was developed in the early 1990s) are original tenants who have stayed and grown. Once a tenant is here it's rare that they want to leave."
In the recent deal, Jameson Capital signed a lease for a pre-built unit on the 36th floor. The space had an $80 psf asking rent. Sealy wouldn't disclose the agreed upon rent but said that it was close to the ask. The building is represented by an agency team from Newmark Knight Frank led by company executives Billy Cohen and Matthew Leone.
Sealy said that the 542,000 s/f tower is almost completely full.
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| Comment: | TF Cornerstone expanding, moving to new headquarters. |
|---|---|
| Author: | Geiger, Daniel |
| Publication: | Real Estate Weekly |
| Date: | Oct 6, 2010 |
| Words: | 879 |
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