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Silverstein's Strengths NEWYORKCITY Silverstein’s Strengths An Interview with Marty Burger, Chief Executive Offi cer, Silverstein Properties, Inc. Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World® Resort EDITORS’ NOTE Marty Burger While Silverstein Properties has Where does the World Trade Center joined Silverstein Properties in been an architect of the revitalized project stand today? February 2010, and was named Downtown, is it also well understood We’ve had incredible success. 7 WTC was Co-CEO in 2011 and CEO in 2013. that the fi rm’s footprints are all over completed 11 years ago; 4 WTC was completed He is in charge of the day-to-day the city? 4 years ago this fall; and 1 WTC was completed operations of the company and We’re in Midtown, Downtown, by the Port Authority about 2 years ago. In addi- leads Silverstein’s efforts to develop and we’ve been looking in the outer tion, we’re completing 3 WTC the fi rst quarter new projects in the United States, boroughs. We own a 101-year-old of next year. We have already delivered space China, Eastern Europe, and Israel. offi ce building a block away from a to one of our tenants in the building. Prior to this, Burger was President three-year-old offi ce building we just 7 and 4 WTC are 100 percent leased. 7 and Chief Executive Officer of built. We operate the old and the new. WTC is a 1.7 million square foot building at Artisan Real Estate Ventures, a We’re building a new million- 52 stories and 4 WTC is a 2.3 million square company he founded in 2006. He Marty Burger square-foot mixed-use project with a foot building at 72 stories. We completed a lease spent 15 years at Related, serving condominium component on 59th and with Spotify in February that brought 4 World as President of Related Las Vegas and Executive West End, and we’ve had rental apartments on Trade Center to virtually 100 percent leased. Vice President of The Related Companies, L.P. 42nd Street between 11th and 12th since 2000. We also did a lot of leasing in 2016 in that From 1994 to 1997, he was a vice president at For 50 years, we’ve been operating buildings in building for Zurich Insurance’s New York head- The Blackstone Group. From 1993 to 1994, he Midtown as well. quarters, along with SNY, Hudson River Trading, worked for Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Real We’re also spending time in D.C. and MediaMath, and MorningStar. These are great Estate funds. Burger received a bachelor of sci- we built the Four Seasons Orlando, which has tenants, and most of them are either just getting ence degree in Economics from the Wharton been incredibly successful. We had a venture in in or will be soon. School of the University of Pennsylvania. Poland and, while we’re mostly raising money The Port Authority and Westfield com- in China, we did get involved in a project that pleted the transportation hub and the retail COMPANY BRIEF Silverstein Properties, Inc. is under construction there. center within it late last year. It has North/ (silversteinproperties.com), is a full service real We’re looking for opportunities anywhere South and East/West spines that connect the estate development and investment fi rm that has we can fi nd them. We have to be creative to lobbies of 1, 2, 3, and 4 World Trade Center developed, owned, and managed over 40 mil- compete today. to the Oculus, which is the transportation hub. lion square feet of offi ce, residential, hotel, and How do old buildings compete when Nowhere else in the world can you fi nd a place retail space. The fi rm, based in Manhattan, has there is so much new development in New with 13 mass transit lines within one block of $10 billion worth of development activity in the York City? each other. pipeline, including rebuilding the World Trade Everything comes at a price. When we’re We have two PATH trains coming in from Center. creating new technology buildings, they’re more Jersey City and Hoboken, and there are 11 MTA effi cient. They make it easier for our tenants to subway lines coming out of the hub within one How has Silverstein Properties been able attract and retain employees because they have block of each other. It’s amazing and a phenom- to keep its entrepreneurial culture as the advantages such as fl oor-to-ceiling glass win- enal amenity. fi rm has grown? dows, fresh air intake from the top of the build- A block north of that, we opened a Four It starts with Larry. It’s a family-run busi- ing, fast elevators, great bathroom capacity, and Seasons hotel and luxury residences in September ness, and he’s always kept it that way. We need a higher level of security, so they don’t have to that includes a Wolfgang Puck Cut Steakhouse – to be institutional to our partners and lenders worry about heating and cooling capacity, and it’s the fi rst fi ve-star hotel Downtown. and equity investors, but at the heart of our people waiting on lines for bathrooms or eleva- Eataly also opened last year at 4 World fi rm, we care very much about our employees, tors. However, they have to pay more to be in Trade Center, and it occupies 46,000 square feet. and we run it like a family business even though those spaces. They’re bringing 10,000 people a day through we’re staffed like an institution. We charge less in our older buildings, there. This is all brand new and on the heels of We have industry experts in each of our dis- and there are always fi rms that are cost-con- what Brookfi eld has done at Brookfi eld Place, ciplines. For Downtown, not only do we have scious and don’t feel they need to be in a new and our retail connects to them. great development, design, construction, plan- building. Down one level from the Oculus is retail ning, and other real estate professionals, but When a building becomes too obsolete, that connects the lobbies of 2, 3, and 4 World we have great marketing and PR people, as well it gets converted to a hotel or for residential Trade Center. The #1 train lets off there, and as event planners because we’re constantly cre- use. We have seen a lot of that Downtown there is a street that goes underground to 1 ating events to promote Downtown. There is so because 50 percent of the buildings in New World Trade Center and past that to Brookfi eld much happening Downtown, and we’re a small York are 75 years or older, and Downtown Place. part of it, but Larry’s guiding hand from 2001 New York was the first financial district so If one goes to the steps below that, they’re going forward has been a huge force in what we have a large concentration of older build- at the PATH terminal platform, where there are has become a totally revitalized Downtown. ings there. two trains to New Jersey. 40 LEADERS POSTED WITH PERMISSION. COPYRIGHT © 2017 LEADERS MAGAZINE, INC. VOLUME 40, NUMBER 4 The impact and success of this Downtown That is not a typical Silverstein deal, but and News Corp negotiating a lease for a three- development is clear. Has the response been we love it, and it’s in our core competency of million-square-foot building that we were going what you expected? offi ce. We’re doing it with some of our existing to anchor with them occupying half of it. The Everyone who visits is amazed at what fi nancial partners, one of which is a pension deal fell through after a year of hard work on has happened, but it has taken a long time. We fund and another which is an insurance com- both sides. We spent a ton of money and time have two pieces left, including the Perelman pany. It was owned by Taconic with a bunch of and they did too, and it didn’t work out. Performing Arts Center. We had $100 million New York City pension funds. They stayed in That was disappointing, but we don’t fold from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. for 10 percent and we came in for 90 percent, our tent – we pick up the pieces and move on allocated to it and, recently, two famous New so we now run that building with Taconic, and to the next one, which is what we’re doing. Yorkers provided $20 million each so we can we’re excited about this opportunity. Hopefully, we’ll fi nd an even bigger tenant to fi nish the fundraising for the Center. It will be That is a new wave deal for us. It’s not take a bigger portion of the building. Larry is a $400 million facility which is now under fi nding a piece of land, building a big build- the poster child for perseverance. When we lost construction. ing, and running it for a generation. I’d rather Fox, he told me that we had to put on a strong The other piece will be 2 World Trade Center, be building multifamily in the city, but I can’t face for the fi rm; we’ve been through worse which is a $4-billion, 100-story building, just under do that because the land is too expensive, and things and need to put everything in perspective three million square feet, and we’re working hard construction prices are prohibitive.
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