FEATURE ARTICLE, DECEMBER 2005

PROVIDING BROKERAGE FOR THE LONG RUN
Winick Realty Group takes a unique angle on brokerage.
Dan Marcec

Winick Realty Group is a Manhattan-based brokerage firm that was founded approximately 20 years ago by Jeff Winick. Initially focusing primarily on landlord representation throughout Manhattan, Winick and partner Cory Zelnik, who joined the firm a little more than 9 years ago, grew the business and moved to become a straight-out brokerage group. Beginning solely in Manhattan, the firm has spread through the New York Tri-State area, moving into all five boroughs of New York City and into Suffolk County, Nassau County, Westchester County, Rockland County and throughout New Jersey.

Winick Realty brokers deals within the retail sector, and while it expands upon that to where the firm is involved with investment properties, strip centers, freestanding properties and all things of that nature, everything Winick does revolves around retail.

“One of the things that sets us apart from other brokerage firms is our tendency to remain with clients over the years,” explains Zelnik, president and principal with the firm. “We've gathered a reputation throughout the industry of being a brokerage house that really can service a client and stick with it. Not to say that all the other firms aren't servicing their clients, but I think it's rare for a firm to be with several companies as long as we have.”

For example, Winick Realty exclusively provides brokerage services for Duane Reade drug stores, which now is a 250-store chain. When the firm first became involved with Duane Reade, the store only held 39 locations, and over the past 8-plus years, Winick Realty has negotiated nearly every single deal, providing consulting if Duane Reade wants to acquire chains and other services of the like. Another company that Winick Realty represents in New York is Blockbuster, for whom it has brokered approximately 200 deals in 10 years. Just to name a few others, the firm represents Moe's Southwest Grill, Office Depot, Starbucks Coffee in the four boroughs aside from Manhattan, and Chase Bank, which it aided through several mergers and still works with today, although on a nonexclusive basis.

“In trying to avoid cliché, we really put our heads down and go for it, and that's the key to our success,” Zelnik says. “We have a vision, and we don't look at transactions on a ‘one-off' basis. We look at the big picture: where is our next deal for this client, where are our next 10 deals for this client, and so on. As we understand the brokerage field, it's a marathon, not a sprint.”

Winick Realty's short-term goals include bringing on new talent, a different type of talent at that, hopefully to aid the firm in growing to a new market. Zelnik notes that the luxury market is something he hasn't yet tapped, and it's a short-term goal of the firm to bring on board people who have experience in that market in the hopes of discovering new clients. For example, the firm recently sold a townhouse in New York and signed a lease on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles with Graff Jewelers, a very prominent, high-end jeweler. Zelnik explains that this type of activity hopefully will serve as a launching pad for Winick Realty's future in the luxury market.

“In the last year, I don't know if we've had any ‘major' deals, per se,   because the word major is subjective,” notes Zelnik. “We can do a small deal at $1,000 per square foot, and that's definitely major from a dollars and cents perspective. But what we do is ‘multi'; we continue to expand and reposition Duane Reade, and we've completed several deals for Chase, and we're remaining consistent in that respect. In addition, we currently represent more than 300,000 square feet of retail space in Manhattan's Financial District.”

In the future, Winick Realty plans to become more involved in big box leasing, a sector of the market it has not yet entered. In addition, the firm has been seeking opportunities across the country in Los Angeles, Chicago and Florida. Just as it spread from one borough to five boroughs and then to New Jersey, Winick Realty will handle brokerage wherever it makes sense. Currently, the firm is receiving inquiries from clients both on the tenant and the landlord side in the aforementioned markets across the United States.

“We're looking at outside opportunities, but I'm not going to hang a shingle in L.A. just to hang a shingle; I don't want to roll the dice in that respect,” Zelnik says. “But if we can work our way out there, we hope to do that in the next few years.”

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