By Linda O’Flanagan
Adelaide Polsinelli has left Marcus and Millichap to join Eastern Consolidated as senior director of investment sales.
The veteran investment sales broker is partnering with Robert Khodadadian, who has been running his own Skyline Properties for the past eight years and earlier worked at Massey Knakal. Khodadadian has been named an Eastern Consolidated associate director.
According to the company’s president Daun Paris, the appointments are the first of several that will be announced at the company in coming weeks.
“We have hired seven other people all doing investment sales,” said Paris. “They come from a diverse background with the common denominator that they are all very experienced professionals with proven track records of success.”
A one-time fashion student – she went to the Fashion Institute of Technology and her first job was for a textile converter – Polsinelli just closed a string of deals for M&M, including two separate $10 million sales, one at 37 West 19th Street and the other a commercial condo at 372 Broadway.
Now, the 25-year veteran of the investment sales arena said she’s looking forward to
using Eastern’s “creative platform” to create the “greatest opportunity for my clients.”
Born and raised by her Italian immigrant parents in Greenwich Village, Polisnelli saw the rise of overseas competition in the textile industry coming and decided early on there were other ways to make money.
She enrolled at NYU and, after earning her degree in real estate and finance, landed a job with Century 21 Goldbenc in 1984. She cut her teeth in the commercial business at Besen & Associates, Michael Besen’s boutique seedbed for some of today’s most prolific New York brokers.
Polsinelli specialized in investment sales, analysis, negotiation and management and worked her way up to form her own highly successful Platinum Team in 2006.
She joined Marcus & Millichap in 2008 and, despite making her fresh start at the onset of the recession, continued to clock up deals at a fair clip.
Her move to Eastern will allow Polsinelli to leverage her experience to sell pricier properties and do more debt and equity deals, a market that has ballooned as the recession has cut a swathe through the melting pot of ownership that built up during the boom.
Eastern Consolidated brokers have amassed billions of dollars in sales over the years and, following the departure last year of Eric Anton and Ronald Solarz – who left to join Brookfield Financial – has reshuffled its senior staff, promoting Alan P. Miller and David Schechtman, both now principals at the firm, as well as Lipa Lieberman and Aliza Avital, who were named senior directors, all of whom have reputations as reliable rainmakers.
According to Paris, the addition of Polsinelli and Khodadadian to the current 45-strong team of Eastern dealmakers is a natural fit.
“Adelaide is well known for her deals and she has the confidence of both the well-known families in the industry as well as the institutions that we do a lot of quiet work with,” said Paris.
She pointed out that, among them, the Eastern Consolidated team speaks 12 languages: “That’s reflective of the real estate market in New York and to be able to engage international clients in their native tongue is a tremendous asset. It’s also unusual to have so many talented top producers all working together.
“We are very excited to welcome both Adelaide and Robert to our company during this exciting growth period when our specialty – off-market commercial real estate deals -have turned red-hot.”
J.D. Parker, vice president and regional manager for the Manhattan office of Marcus & Millichap, wished Polsinelli well in her new position saying, “She is a good broker and highly respected and we wish her nothing but success in her future endeavors.”