National Retail Summit: In-Person & Digital Event

Andrew M. Kahn joined Cushman & Wakefield in 2000 and is an Executive Managing Director of Retail Services. With over 25 years of retail leasing experience, Mr. Kahn’s strategy in developing national rollouts, negotiation of complex deal structures, understanding of consumer behavior, study of trends and data analytics, financial analysis, and development design and merchandising consulting allow him to draw from a breadth of experience to add value to his clients. He has completed hundreds of transactions valued over $3 billion and leases for some of the most well recognized, highest trafficked and most productive retail locations globally. Mr. Kahn’s understanding of his clients’ objectives and execution of retail strategies have earned him the reputation as one of the best leasing advisors in the field. Mr. Kahn consistently ranks among the top 10 retail brokers at Cushman & Wakefield nationally. Mr. Kahn has earned a stellar reputation as an expert in negotiating complex flagship deals for major retail brands and national roll outs. Microsoft, 677 Fifth Avenue: completion of largest Microsoft flagship store in the world on one of the best blocks of Fifth Avenue. Net lease of 40,000 sf seven story building on one of the best blocks of Fifth Avenue. Microsoft’s Gensler designed storefront with LED billboard is one of the most recognizable storefronts in all of New York City.  McDonald’s, 1530 Broadway: Completion of McDonald’s global corporate flagship store in the heart of Times Square.  This 12,000 SF lease is coupled with the largest individually owned LED billboard (10,000 SF) in Times Square and gives McDonald’s the most significant presence of any restaurant in the Times Square market. LEGO, 636 Fifth Avenue – Rockefeller Center - Opening Summer 2021: spectacular two level 11,000 SF flagship store facing St Patrick’s Cathedral. We negotiated LEGO’s first New York City flagship more than 10 years which became one of their most successful stores in the world.  This relocation and expansion will allow LEGO to capture the full potential of the Fifth Avenue/Rockefeller Center market. Currently, Mr. Kahn is responsible for the national strategy and roll out of Samsung experience stores. Mr. Kahn has also represented prominent landlords that include TF Cornerstone, New York Life, The Carlyle Group, Millennium Partners, Peninsula Hotels, Kingsville Investments, Rabina Properties, Eastgate Realty, Ponte Gadea, and Savanna. Mr. Kahn began his career at the Edward S. Gordon Company/Insignia ESG (the predecessor to CBRE in New York). He later helped form Retail Development Partners, a national landlord and tenant representation brokerage firm which merged with Cushman & Wakefield in 2000. Mr. Kahn holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont. He is an active member of the Real Estate Board of New York, the International Council of Shopping Centers and the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Stefan Martinovic is VP of Data Partnerships at Placer.ai, working with key clients including real estate firms, hedge funds and retailers to devise solutions to critical business challenges as well as cultivating partnerships with innovative data & software providers to support Placer's product development and corporate growth. He joins Placer from Midwood Investment & Development, where he served as VP Investments & Head of Analytics. Prior to Midwood, Stefan was the Head of Innovation & Products at REBNY, New York City’s real estate trade association. Stefan is an active angel investor and advisor to over a dozen companies in the PropTech space, and an entrepreneurial real estate developer with a portfolio of projects including a residential, hospitality & regenerative agriculture community in the Catskills and a first of its kind modular mixed-use building in Upper Manhattan.

Dena Cohen focuses her practice on commercial leasing transactions, ground leases, and real estate sales and acquisitions. Dena has represented a wide range of prominent landlords and tenants in retail and office leases across the U.S. Her tenant clients have included large financial institutions, well-known restaurants, art galleries, international retailers, television networks and fashion brands in prime Manhattan locations. Dena's diverse experience representing landlords and tenants helps her efficiently negotiate transactions and find creative solutions to thorny issues that can arise during lease negotiations. Dena also represents parties in the acquisition and sale of real estate development rights, as well as outdoor advertising, billboard and signage leasing. Dena has been recognized numerous times by Thomson Reuters' Real Estate Super Lawyers, which identifies lawyers who have achieved a high degree of excellence and professional achievement. Dena has recently represented: a major real estate owner in various retail leases including high-end medical offices and food and beverage establishments a hotel developer in a long-term ground lease in Midtown Manhattan its first New York transaction a real estate investment firm in the net lease of the former H&H Bagels headquarters a national financial institution in the divestment of 500,000 square feet of Class A office space a global financial institution in its $87 million acquisition of a SoHo loft building a real estate fund in its $100 million acquisition of a hotel in Union Square the purchasers of multiple properties in complex 1031-exchange transactions numerous corporate clients in leasing transactions, including several investment banking firms and public television network WNET in its headquarters lease a prominent developer in a 99-year ground lease of property in Red Hook, Brooklyn the owner of property in lower Manhattan in a development ground lease

David Himmel is a Managing Director and the Chief Operating Officer of Jamestown Real Estate Services, which consists of Development & Construction, Architecture, Retail Leasing, Creative & Marketing, and Property Management. In this role he is responsible for the day-to-day management of these departments and their execution within Jamestown’s portfolio. Mr. Himmel joined Jamestown in 2014. Previously, he worked at Forest City Ratner Companies in Development on projects including the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and New York by Gehry at 8 Spruce Street. Mr. Himmel graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 with distinction and from Harvard Business School in 2014. As a student at Harvard Business School, Mr. Himmel co-founded the Brattle Park Group, a real estate investment company focused on mobile home parks. He serves on the Harvard Alumni Real Estate Board and the Covenant House Real Estate Executive Committee.

Lori McGhee-Curtis is Vice President of Specialty Leasing for Taubman. Lori brings more than 25 years of experience in retail leasing, marketing and management to her role and oversees the company’s national and regional specialty leasing agents who curate compelling retail environments for tenants and customers. Fashion-obsessed and forward thinking, in 2018 Lori developed Emerge With Taubman, a platform that helps emerging, digitally native and legacy brands flourish with new concepts and experiences at Taubman shopping centers. Emerge with Taubman takes the brands to lease and to market quickly, with flexible terms, while offering turnkey solutions for everything from design and merchandising to marketing. To date, Lori and her team have worked with a variety of exciting brands in leading markets, including Elle B Zhou, Jessica Rich, LisaRaye Homestyles, Bikini Baddie, Celebrity Vault, Heirs to the Throne Gallery, Museum of Dream Space, Tamara Mellon, Calia by Carrie Underwood, Bogner, Miniso, United Nude, Christina Lombardi, Radley London and more. Lori is a leader on Taubman’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Group and founded the People of Color employee resource group. She is active in the retail community as a co-chair of Ancillary Retail while also serving on ICSC’s Specialty Leasing and Detroit Garment Group boards. Lori and her husband Phillip lives in greater Detroit.

Jay Norris, Co-founder, and CEO of Guesst®, has over 15 years in developing experiential marketing concepts. Jay started in the music industry developing multi-city tours and venues for top recording artists for Clive Davis’ Arista Record and others. In 1997, Jay started Tastemakers Media, which published a cutting-edge magazine throughout the US featuring the best retail & lifestyle offerings domestically and abroad. In 2005, Jay brought his expertise in lifestyle and experiential marketing to the commercial real estate tenant brokerage industry. Jay is a small to medium-size business growth executive at heart, continually looking to maximize resources, build relationships and identify growth opportunities. Jay has been effectuating Retail-Matchmaking in the analog space for a number of years, which has led to the founding of Guesst - A Retail-Sharing Community.

Peter Braus is the Managing Principal and Cofounder of Lee & Associates NYC, where he oversees over sixty brokerage professionals, and is actively involved in every aspect of managing and running the business. Mr. Braus is also Vice-Chair of Lee & Associates’ National Board of Directors. Mr. Braus has been involved in the ownership and brokerage of real estate for over 25 years, specializing in strategic repositioning of major retail assets on behalf of owners and developers. He joined Lee & Associates NYC in 2011 as an owner/investor. In 2019, Mr. Braus won the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) Retail Deal of the Year Award. Prior to Lee & Associates NYC, Mr. Braus was a retail leasing broker with Newmark Real Estate. He has been involved in a wide variety of brokerage transactions and currently represents numerous owners and tenants.

Risa C. Letowsky is co-chair of the Leasing Practice Group at Duval & Stachenfeld LLP. Ms. Letowsky counsels and represents landlords and tenants in large-scale office, retail, restaurant, shopping center, co-working, industrial and ground lease transactions. Among the notable matters Ms. Letowsky has handled in her career, she was an integral part of the team that represented Millennium Partners in the long-term lease by Millennium to Equinox of all of the Sports Club/LA and Reebok Sports Club/NY health and fitness clubs located in Boston, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. as part of the transaction in which Millennium sold its health and fitness club business and certain assets to Equinox. Ms. Letowsky is currently handling the retail leasing for the Wynn hotels located in Las Vegas and Massachusetts, and is also handling the retail leasing for Area15, an immersive entertainment complex in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is being developed by Fisher Brothers. In addition, Ms. Letowsky is part of the team handling the leasing for Industry City, a 6,000,000 square foot development in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Ms. Letowsky represents Knotel in connection with its leasing initiatives throughout the United States. In addition, Ms. Letowsky regularly represents several prominent New York City landlords, as well as a large insurance company. Prior to joining Duval & Stachenfeld, Ms. Letowsky was Special Counsel at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP. Earlier in her career, Ms. Letowsky served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Rouse Properties, Inc., and as an associate in the real estate group of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Committed to providing pro bono services, Ms. Letowsky has been honored by the Legal Aid Society and the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York for her work with these organizations, two of the numerous nonprofit and charitable organizations to which she has dedicated pro bono services. Ms. Letowsky previously sat on the board of the Lincoln Center Corporate Fund, Women’s Leadership Junior Council, and is actively involved in UJA-Federation of New York’s Young Real Estate Executives Division and Women’s Division. Ms. Letowsky is admitted to practice only in New York.

Dan Shallit has been a retail development professional for over 25 years, starting his career with notable brands such as GNC & Macy’s prior to joining Starbucks in 1999. After ten years, Dan left Starbucks to see development from the landlord perspective. In 2009, he joined Acadia Realty Trust as the VP of leasing. While the experience was meaningful, his heart was still on the retail side of development. After a small stop at Sports Authority, Dan rejoined Starbucks global development group in 2012. He was hired for Manhattan, with responsibility for helping to expand emerging brands and concepts including the company’s first Teavana Café, Express store, delivery store, and Reserve bar location, while also helping to open, expand, & relocate dozens of traditional Starbucks locations. Dan earned his promotion in 2016. As the current director of development for NY metro, he holds accountability for real estate/development along with construction for New York City and Long Island. Dan has a long history of public speaking & teaching. He’s a long-time guest teacher/speaker for a NYU restaurant/real estate program and participates and leads multiple real estate panels and classes for great institutes and universities such as ICSC, Wharton Business School Alumni, Hunter College, NYU and his alma mater Johnson & Wales University. Dan lives in Rego Park, Queens with his wife, and has one son.

Oliver Holland is the Senior Director, Project Management at Schimenti Construction Company, an industry-leading general contractor headquartered in NYC. Oliver oversees Schimenti’s project delivery across several key sectors, including Retail, Hospitality, and Commercial Real Estate. Experienced in leading delivery teams for Fortune 500 companies, Oliver provides clients with technology focused and cost-effective solutions, driving industry leading outcomes in safety, quality and customer service. Oliver holds a BS in Civil Engineering and Sustainability from Brunel University and brings over 15 years of experience in international construction management.

Helen is a key Studio Director in MBH’s New York Office who brings over 15 years in design, strategy, and physical transformation of retail and hospitality architecture. Before coming to MBH, she acquired vast knowledge on the client side of design from her time working for brands including Gap, Ann Taylor, and Capital One. As Studio Director, Helen will utilize her strong management and leadership skills to ensure projects remain on track and deliverables exceed expectations. Throughout her career she has cultivated her strengths in architectural and interior design, collaborative project management, and bridging the digital and physical customer experiences. Her extensive experience and strategic, creative leadership brings new guidance and excitement to the New York team.

Vince joined Meridian in 2021 and currently serves as a Director and Tenant Rep Advisor in the company’s Manhattan office. He specializes in both tenant representation and landlord representation and in New York City, NY Metro Area, and the Tristate Area. Mr. Sweeney has distinguished himself in the retail leasing sector with expansive experience in market entry and roll out strategies with the leasing of QSR, national and publicly traded retailers and big box retailers. Prior to joining Meridian, Mr. Sweeney was a senior advisor at start up, Tenant Base, where he managed tenant rep advisory. Prior to joining Tenant Base, Mr. Sweeney worked at The McDevitt Company as well as SCG-Retail. Over the course of his career, Mr. Sweeney has represented Starbucks, Staples, Whole Foods, Washington Mutual Bank, Capital One Bank, LA Fitness, Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Drake’s of London, Baked by Melissa, Dos Toros, Freehold and Sabon to name a few. Notable lease negotiated by Mr. Sweeney was at 119 Spring Street in where he exclusively represented the Kardashian’s for their Dash store.

Hemant is the co-founder and CEO of Housie, a one click leasing software for apartment rentals. He leads their growth, operations, marketing, and PR efforts. Hemant is a real estate development executive with over twelve (12) years experience and a portfolio of $4.1 Billion which includes high rise condominium & multifamily residential, commercial office, retail, industrial & infrastructure projects in New York, North East California and Seattle. Within a short span of time, he has established has a proptech leader. He is a pioneer of bringing utility to Virtual Reality and Computer Vision in the real estate industry.