Last week was Commercial Observer’s biggest issue of the year: Power 100.
This is where we take all the data, the trends, the transactions, the stories and the profiles of the last year or so, and try to distill it all into one comprehensive ranking of the top 100 names in commercial real estate. (It’s actually more than 100 names; many of the rankings have more than one person from the same company.)
One of the things we try not to do is make it just a stagnant who-owns-what list. We like to raise certain profiles when they unveil some sort of spectacular deal, like Larry Silverstein did when Silverstein Properties announced that it had bagged a 2 million-square-foot anchor tenant (American Express) for 2 World Trade Center.
We also like to inject new players onto the list who have never been on it before, like Steve Cohen (whose New York Mets are not doing quite as badly as when we first published this), as well as some returning champions who had been lying low but came back in a blaze of glory (hi, Roy March!)
We tried to weigh the various trends that affected the market. Data centers are bigger than ever — and so that affected our thinking. CRE mergers and acquisitions spiked last year and, again, that was something we considered. And we talked about some of the asset classes that have been bouncing between good and bad, but seem to have had a resurgence of good lately.
One of the big success stories of 2025 and 2026 has been the revival of retail, and perhaps no company benefited more from this than Simon Property Group. But, as we were making our ranking, David Simon passed away after a long battle with cancer. His successor — his son Eli — was a little new to the role for us to consider him for this year’s list, but, if he’s anything like his dad, he will surely find a spot on Power 100 `27. (He’s off to a strong start if you look at Simon’s earnings call last week.)
These lists afford a moment of reflection on those who had passed away, and David Simon was not the only figure. We remembered 43-year-old Wesley LePatner, CEO of Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust, who was shot by a deranged gunman at 345 Park Avenue along with off-duty police officer Didarul Islam, security guard Aland Etienne and Rudin associate Julia Hyman in one of the most harrowing and tragic incidents of the last year.
There were a few notable absences on Power 100. In recent years, one of the most powerful names was that of Jerome Powell, but with his tenure up as chairman of the Federal Reserve and a replacement still not yet in office (Kevin Warsh was confirmed by the Senate last week, after Power 100 dropped) we figured it was probably best to skip a Fed chair this year.
Politicians are a category that wax and wane in importance on CO’s list. But there were a few political movers and shakers that we selected who certainly could be on Power 100 and that savvy students of real estate should familiarize themselves with.
One big political name did rate an honorable mention — we’re talking about Mayor Mamdani. (Along with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie.)
Like him or hate him, he’s a powerful figure in New York City real estate, and he seemed to be trying to prove as much last week. While the industry is still bristling from Mamdani’s talk of rent freezes and a pied-à-terre tax, the mayor has also been pushing to speed up the construction approval process. (No. 76 on Power 100, Bob Knakal, had some advice for the new mayor: Don’t build housing. Incentivize it.)
Speaking of the Power 100s…
Many P100 honorees were not content to rest on their laurels last week. We continued to see wheeling and dealing.
For instance, our friends at JLL and Savills inked a 121,833-square-foot renewal and expansion for law firm Baker McKenzie at the Property & Building Corporation-owned office tower at 10 Bryant Park.
Vornado Realty Trust filed plans to add a 72-story multifamily tower to its 1.4 million-square-foot, 1,328-unit Independence Plaza, a residential campus in Tribeca.
Newcomer to the list, Tavros, signed a 76,000-square-foot lease with Chelsea Piers Fitness, at 250 Water Street in FiDi.
Brookfield (along with the Qatar Investment Authority) scored a whopping $1.9 billion CMBS refinancing of 2 Manhattan West. (It was a big two weeks for CMBS. Although he wasn’t on Power 100 — and maybe he should have been — Stefan Soloviev’s Soloviev Group secured a $1.8 billion CMBS refi of 9 West 57th Street earlier this month.)
And one of the great masters of the game, Stephen Ross, plunked down a (for him) modest $55 million for a full block in West Palm Beach, which is expected to eventually be a 100- to 130-unit condominium.
Movin’ on up
There were some interesting hires and promotions last week.
Richard Kessler, who has been at Benenson Capital Partners since 1998, has ascended to the role of CEO — the firm’s first ever in its 121-year history. (Although Kessler had more or less been handling CEO duties for a while.)
Colliers’ New York City office hired Michael Hirschfeld and son Brian away from JLL to lead the retail services arm of the firm. The senior Hirschfeld will serve as vice chair; the younger will be a senior vice president.
Avison Young made two hires from Alvarez & Marsal Property Solutions: Christian Stanton (previously of Cushman & Wakefield) to be a principal and Libby Hodes to be a director. Both will focus on retail leasing.
And TSCG, an Atlanta-based retail brokerage, promoted Nichole Popovics to president last week.
Hey, just in time for ICSC in Vegas tomorrow!
Sunday reading
One cannot subsist on power rankings alone. If you’d like something else to consider on this day of rest, here are two longish stories that readers should look at.
It’s not a pretty picture, but CO took a dive into the world of Hollywood studio real estate, and it reminds us a little of a nuclear meltdown.
We exaggerate for effect, but keep this in mind: “There’s more inventory, less production, and no desire or need to lock up a space for multiple shows,” one executive told CO.
But bad markets are something the pros deal with. They’re inevitable, and they must be faced head on. (Speaking of bad markets, did anyone notice that multifamily construction starts nationwide are the worst they’ve been since 2011?)
Somebody who’s in the middle of turning around a big company right now is Laura Clark, the new CEO of Rexford Industrial Realty.
Clark sat down with CO to discuss her past, the current state of California industrial real estate, and the future of Rexford. That’s worth a long look in between reading the rest of the Power 100 stories.
See you next week.
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