Veteran brokers Lev Kimyagarov and Rubin Isak are seizing opportunity
during the coronavirus pandemic to direct their skills towards a niche market.
The pair have formed a new firm, Development Site Advisors,
with the aim of cornering a market plagued by inconsistency and complexity.
And while many firms are on a COVID pause, Development Site
Advisors is in the midst of a recruitment drive to train up agents whose sole
focus will be on the development site sector.
“During our many years of working in the commercial real estate industry, we came to realize that there was a true void in the development site sector,” said Kimyagarov, who serves as managing principal and co-founder.
“Development sites are a very complex asset class, with each
site having several potential development scenarios and each scenario affecting
value differently. But most brokers don’t evaluate development sites correctly,
primarily because of their lack of neighborhood-specific zoning knowledge. That’s why our tagline is We Know Zoning.”
With plans in the pipeline for several months, Isak and
Kimyagarov said they decided to press ahead with their launch this month
despite the pandemic’s impact on the market. They tapped industry consultant
Wayne Naylor to conduct intensive training for a group of 12 new agents who “will
be ready to hit the ground running once the market gets back to normal.”
“When the pandemic hit, we decided to switch to a virtual
training program,” said Isak, managing principal and co-founder. “Our agents
will be hyper focused on their specific neighborhood, the specific zoning
regulations for that area and site and every possible development scenario with
costs, and ultimately the value a developer can pay for any given site
“These are powerful tools for property owners, because we
help them to understand how developers view their sites, and we make sure they
achieve correct pricing, strong terms and straight-forward contracts,” said
Isak. “We make easy what is inherently complex.”
Already DSA has won several agency assignments, including a West
35th Street assemblage in an M1-6 zone located one block north of the Empire
State Building, and the former Beethoven piano building in Mott Haven where a
conversion or ground up development is on the cards. It recently went to contract
on a 150,000 s/f site on West 219th Street in Inwood and closed on a corner lot in Woodside,
Queens, that will contain a charter school.
Said Isak, “With so many variables in the development site
sector, we want to go to the market with accurate information having done our
own drone tours, comparables, zoning studies and environmental reports. When we
have a site for sale, investors will know it’s a real site and they are going
to be able to make an informed decision with all of this due diligence already done,
which is something I think will be very valuable moving forward.”
Kimyagarov and Isak have worked on and off together for many years, first as agents at Massey Knakal Realty Services/Cushman & Wakefield and later at Eastern Consolidated. When Eastern shut its doors in 2018, they serviced their clients through Isak’s Goldenwood Property Advisors.
“It was while we were working as jack-of-all-trade brokers
that we decided to form Development Site Advisors because we realized there was
a real void in the sector,” said Isak.
“It’s not just about adding value for our clients, but in a
city of over 60,000 licensed agents, you need to differentiate yourself. That’s why we’re doing all this training and
investing in a proprietary valuation platform that will distinguish us as
experts not just in the sale of development sites, but in their ground lease,
joint ventures, air right transfers and all of the other aspects of the sector.”
