Lee & Associates Tapped for Seward Park Cooperative Retail
Lee & Associates NYC Tapped to Reposition Seward Park Cooperative’s 50K-SF Retail Portfolio
Commercial Observer reports that Seward Park Cooperative — one of New York City’s largest market-rate residential co-ops — has selected Lee & Associates NYC to lead leasing strategy and retail representation for 25 retail properties totaling approximately 50,000 square feet on the Lower East Side. The assignment marks a rare opportunity to institutionalize a fragmented retail portfolio held entirely by co-op shareholders, a holdover from pre-2007 federal tax restrictions on co-op income.
The Lee retail team — Peter Braus, Paul Popkin, Eric Levine, Morris Dweck, and Annie Squier — is already marketing a 1,145-square-foot restaurant space at 359 Grand Street. The team anticipates three to five new leasing opportunities within the next 12 months as the board looks to balance neighborhood-serving tenants with proven destination operators.
“We still want to service the community with what’s needed, but we also want to bring in larger brands and make it also a destination for other people to come visit,” said Paul Popkin of Lee & Associates NYC.
“The board members are volunteer leaders, fiduciaries of the co-op, but they live in the community, they’re going to be walking by those stores every single day,” added Eric Levine, who joins the Lee team from FIND Real Estate and is a longtime Seward Park shareholder.