Interviews Andrew Weisz of the RPW Group.

0:00 Speaker 1 Good morning. This is Michael Stolen for the Stolar Real Estate Report. This morning, I have the opportunity of having Andrew Wise, who is the president of the RpW Group and who’s responsible for directing the firm’s real estate investment and leasing activities. Andrew was actively involved in sourcing new opportunities and leading the execution a business plan, and he’s

0:21 very active in the conversion right now to new residential rents, especially in Westchester. I call Andrew and the RpW Group the leading Westchester developers. Thanks for being here.

0:31 Speaker 2 Thanks, Michael, It’s always a pleasure to be with you.

0:33 Speaker 1 So let’s talk about the conversions, and let’s talk about some of your buildings, because I think it’s really important there, especially with transit oriented developments, especially you know, the rents are a little lower over there, and New York City is too expensive to certain markets.

0:50 Speaker 2 Yeah. So I would say over the last decade, Westchester County really went from no new development to a substantial amount. And what we’re seeing is really conversion of obsolete existing office buildings into a diversity of uses, primarily new multifamily rentals, various types of retail, including entities like Lifetime fitness and Wegmans a tremendous amount of medical and some other ancillary uses.

1:27 Coupled with that, we’re also seeing developments of new multifamily on existing office sites. So you start to.

1:36 Speaker 1 See a complete conversion of the property, ripping down of the buildings and then rebuilding.

1:41 Speaker 2 There’s that, and then you’re also seeing they’re maintaining the office building and adding either a retail component or a multifamily component, a medical component.

1:51 Speaker 1 So let’s talk about some of those things that you’ve done with regard to those areas.

1:55 Speaker 2 Sure, So at eleven thirty three Westchester Avenue in White Plains, we it’s a seventy acre site, a former one of the former IBM headquarters. It’s a six hundred thousand square foot building. We have HSS there. They have their Westchester location in that building. The building is performing well. But we what we embarked on approximately five years ago was

2:20 we subdivided about twenty acres of the seventy and we just completed a new three hundred and three unit ground up rental development that that opened for releasing in January, and the response, frankly, like most of new development in the region, has been terrific.

2:42 Speaker 1 Now you’ve got tax advantages for this.

2:45 Speaker 2 There was some tax advantages. There’s also a a affordability component. Was the affordability Approximately ten percent of the project is affordable. And it’s you know, it offers individuals. This is not in the downtown. This is a little bit more of a suburban type location. But it offers individuals an opportunity to be, you know, ten minutes from the White Plains

3:12 or right train station. But you’re also you know, you’re abutting the maple More golf course and you have access to some of the new amenities that I mentioned, like the Wegmans and the lifetime fitnesses.

3:22 Speaker 1 Now, what about with regard to with regard to let’s say, buses to the train stations, So you’re not a walking distance, you’re not a true transit oriented development which is right next to the trains or in nearbying correct.

3:39 Speaker 2 So, I mean what we found is that the office parks are incredibly complementary to the multi family. We have existing shuttles that take folks from the office parks to and from the train station. Those same shuttles can do the same and are doing the same for the residential for the residents and In our case, most of our

4:02 buildings are larger in size, call it north of two hundred and fifty thousand feet. We have amenities like cafeterias, gyms, outdoor spaces, daycare center, sundry shops. So as an example, our project at eleven thirty three Westchester Avenue, the residents that are moving into the Halden on that site get the benefit of if they’d like to using a lot

4:23 of the office amenities.

4:24 Speaker 1 What about the new property project you’re planning to work on web By Venue.

4:29 Speaker 2 So that’s a two hundred unit ground up development, also on a site that we’ve owned for a long time. It has a rather large office building also approximately it’s about a million feet covered, and we’re going to be building two hundred units there in Harrison and we’re quite excited for that endeavor. It was just approved at the

4:51 end of the year and we envisioning starting to build at some point in the fourth quarter of the year.

4:56 Speaker 1 Now you are major owners of office buildings in west Chester or also in Stamford. So recently you made an acquisition from Empire State Trust over there. Let’s talk about your thoughts of why you went into buying a new office building and planned to convert it and amenditize it, as they would say.

5:13 Speaker 2 Sure, so, there’s obviously been a lot of a lot of disruption in the office market across the country, but I would say for the right type of office asset, and when I mean right, I really I focus on the physical bricks, the amenities, the location, and I think for us really what we value, probably most now more

5:39 than ever, is the partnership with the tenants.

5:41 Speaker 1 I’m very happy that you were able to join me today talking about west Chester and thanks again

5:46 Speaker 2 Thanks very much, Michael