SERHANT, widely known for its expertise in luxury residential real estate, has been making its name known in the commercial real estate world, too, recently — and Bernadette Brennan is leading that charge.
Brennan, executive director of commercial at Serhant since mid-2022, manages a team of 15 commercial agents in the New York area and has already brokered some major deals for the firm, including a commercial building at 548 West 22nd Street in Chelsea, which cybersecurity company Fortinet bought in January for $50.5 million. Brennan also recently helped to sell a development site at 30-38 Franklin Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for roughly $8 million.
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In addition, Brennan just launched sales for a portfolio of four side-by-side buildings on Times Square’s Restaurant Row at 662 Ninth Avenue, 373 West 46th Street, 371 West 46th Street and 369 West 46th Street. The portfolio is set to sell for a total of roughly $24 million.
The work won’t stop there — Brennan said Serhant has plans to grow its commercial team by at least 20 to 50 agents within the next year, as well as to expand into new markets such as Florida and upstate New York.
And with Season 2 of Netflix’s “Owning Manhattan” set to release Dec. 5, Serhant certainly has a whole lot more deals on the way. The reality show, which premiered in June 2024, follows Serhant founder Ryan Serhant and his agents as they navigate the competitive world of luxury real estate in New York City (and, as you could probably guess, a lot of drama ensues).
Brennan sat down with Commercial Observer at Serhant’s SoHo office earlier this month to discuss the firm’s commercial work, Season 2 of “Owning Manhattan,” and what’s next for the firm.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Commercial Observer: So what’s it like being the executive director of commercial at such a highly recognized residential brokerage like Serhant? What’s the commercial market like right now in New York City?
Bernadette Brennan: It’s exciting, it’s exhilarating, it’s challenging. It’s an opportunity for growth. When I got here, I was basically agent No. 1 as an investment sales commercial broker, and we’ve listed probably over $2 billion worth of listings so far. There’s been pain points and growth like any other new company, but, overall, it’s been an exciting time of marrying the brand that Ryan has built — and that’s kind of synonymous for luxury and end users — and fitting that into a commercial landscape that really didn’t have that pizzazz and that flash, in my opinion, before we kind of brought that to market.
There is a lot of action going on. For every person that’s waiting on the sidelines, someone else is making an offer. I will say that the buyer right now, in my opinion, is very savvy, very cost conscious, and wants to make sure they’re not getting into a bad deal or buying something that’s falling apart. They’re really vetting their deals quite thoroughly.
As for which asset class is getting the most interest, retail has been pretty much staying solid. Retail for end users is always coveted, but retail that’s occupied is really the move for most of the investor plays. Multifamily is always a stable go-to for many investors. And really what I’m seeing is people just trying to get overly creative in terms of what the cap rate could be, what the projections are, and where they could find a little bit more skin in the deal and in the game. I’m seeing deals that are just adding a level of creativity that I haven’t seen, whether it’s seller financing, owner financing, sale-leasebacks, creative financing, JVs, all that good stuff.
Following Zohran Mamdani’s win in the mayoral election, do you think people are still pretty confident about investing?
The day after the mayoral election, when everybody said we were going to explode and all wind up in South Beach somewhere, we got an offer on one of our biggest assets, and we’re very, very close to getting this deal done. We toured two tours that were not canceled for our $18 million listing at 40 Rector Street. They still showed interest.
I think we’re seeing a spike in sellers from the Mamdani election, which isn’t necessarily bad for me. My job is to sell real estate. And then I’m seeing people that are seeing an opportunity. For every one person that is staying on the sidelines post-Mamdani election and seeing what plays out, there’ll be another buyer making an offer. So it’s kind of a mixed bag right now.
What have been Serhant’s biggest commercial deals so far? Are you working on any big deals right now?
Our biggest deal to date is 548 West 22nd Street, where we entered into a bidding war with two tech companies and Fortinet became the buyer. We closed at $50.5 million for 45,000 square feet of vacant office in West Chelsea, where most said we wouldn’t even get $1,000 a foot. I think we got around $1,400 a foot. That was a big win. I think that was the highest traded price post-COVID in the area.
Another big deal is 281 Park Avenue South, which is our $120 million trophy asset. A little birdie has told me that it’s going to be appearing on our Netflix show in a few weeks. That’s going to see a much bigger audience than really any of our listings have seen at that level. I think we’re about to be in roughly 190 million homes in dozens of countries, through Netflix and their distribution. So that’s an interesting partnership that we’ve been able to marry, where it’s like bringing real estate into reality TV and into the masses.
We also did a big development site in Greenpoint, which we sold for $8 million at 30-38 Franklin Street. Right across the street here, we did 325 West Broadway. We sold the Lazaro store and the hair salon. That was a big deal for us.
We also have a four-building assemblage, which is actually probably the most time-sensitive one right now. We’ve listed four buildings in a row on Restaurant Row in Times Square. I’m very close to an accepted offer there, but to sell all four in a row is kind of iconic. The first building is 662 Ninth Avenue, which is the Yum Yum Too building. And then its sister building has Palermo Steakhouse in it. Then the third building is 371 West 46th Street, which is Jasmine’s Caribbean Cuisine, followed by the Ritz nightclub. It’s around a $24 million assemblage in Times Square. I usually am known for doing very creative, hard-to-move properties.
You created Serhant’s List & Assist platform, which co-lists spaces with other agents and brokerages. Can you tell us a little bit more about that platform? Who or what has used it?
We’re still in the pilot phase of it, but it’s something that I created out of a need that I saw in the market for residential brokers wanting to expand and do commercial. So we created this program, which is exactly as it sounds. We help residential brokers and commercial brokers list commercial properties, and we assist them in the process. We provide comping support, pitching support. They get to access all of my deals when pitching, so it seems like it’s not something new to an agent that doesn’t have the deal flow behind them to support these bigger listings. We assist with the negotiations bringing it to market.
Other companies that have used it are a lot of the commercial companies, like Avison Young, Okada and Company, Lee and Associates … .
We’ve signed $1.7 billion from residential agents, both at Serhant and not at Serhant, but primarily Serhant agents that had commercial leads and listings. We’re probably at about $2 billion now in signed listings from our List & Assist platform.
Tell us a little more about your time in the music industry before joining Serhant. How did that experience help you in this role?
I think it set me up perfectly for this role. Where I came from, my job was to make people famous, but here the property is really the star. Unlike in music, I feel a lot less pressure, because the house isn’t going to cry if they’re not on Netflix. When I would manage talent, I’d have 50 people we were managing, and only one of them might become the Taylor Swift or the Britney Spears.
When I got into real estate, it was so much easier, because I think everyone needs a home, and almost everybody works in an office. Now I’m covering 100 percent of the market instead of the 0.01 percent that might be Britney Spears. So it really set me up to understand the probability of things actually working and not getting so disappointed if we didn’t get the listing or the gig or something like that.
The music industry is very cutthroat. I always joke with Ryan, I’m like, “I’m used to dealing with much bigger divas.” I used to work for Madonna, Cher, Usher, Ashley Simpson, Jessica Simpson … . I think it set me up to be ready to deal with celebrities in this role. So that’s why I’m Ryan’s go-to a lot with stuff, because I’m not gonna fan out. I’m the one that’s going to get a deal signed.
Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.