COMMERCIAL OBSERVER POWER 100
April 20, 2016
75. Norman and David Sturner and David Greene
Founding Principal and CEO, Principal and COO and
President of Brokerage Services at MHP Real Estate Services
Fans of fried chicken sandwiches owe MHP Real Estate Services a debt of gratitude that they will never adequately repay; in January Chick-fil-A took a space in 1180 Avenue of the Americas, a building which MHP has a stake in—and it was MHP broker James Tamborlane who inked the deal.
But, of course, that was just one lease in one building. In the last four months MHP has been on a mad spree signing deals at its 1.2-million-square-foot Financial District building, 180 Maiden Lane, which the company purchased in 2014 and has been sprucing up ever since: The law firm Wade Clark Mulcahy took 17,702 square feet; Abt SRBI, the global research organization, snapped up 13,596 square feet and online jeweler Chloe + Isabel grabbed 30,000 square feet.
Sitting in his Midtown office last month, Norman Sturner summed up his business plan for MHP fairly neatly: “We do two buildings a year,” Mr. Sturner said. “Maybe a third if we can find it.”
The two to three buildings MHP goes after are highly specific: “It has to be an office building,” Mr. Sturner continued. “It has to be on the island of Manhattan. And it has to be off-market. Not an easy focus, which is why we only do two or three buildings a year.”
Simple—but in MHP’s case, effective.
In January, MHP picked up the 614,000-square-foot, 21-story 850 Third Avenue with HNA Group (which is also the owner of 1180 Avenue of the Americas) for more than $460 million from Shorenstein Properties. MHP had approached Shorenstein about nabbing the property last fall and turned the deal around at a breathless pace. And MHP just began raising money for its next round of buildings (the fund should raise $200 million.)—M.G.
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