News
FAMILY VALUES
December 3, 2008
| As one of Long Island’s largest owners and investors, Rechler Equity Partners has been a dominant force in industrial and office markets since the family developed NYC’s first industrial park in ’58 and what is now the nation’s second-largest industrial park in Hauppauge in ’61. It looks like next year will be even better for managing partners (and cousins) Gregg and Mitchell Rechler.We’re so glad someone can say that, we stopped by their Melville office to see what’s in store. |
 |
| They haven’t bought many properties in the past four years, they tell us, wary of artificially inflated prices. This has left them with a $50M war chest, ready to hop on any attractive investments. In particular, they’re interested in industrial sale-leaseback deals in anticipation of owner/operators’capital needs, given today’s unstable economic environment. |
 |
| The firm’s development pipeline will also be busy in ‘09. Sears is vacating its 40-year lease at Motor Parkway and South Service Road in Hauppauge, which allows repositioning of the asset into Class A office space. Also on the ledger: the development of the Gabreski Airport site on County Route 31 in Westhampton, which will include 460k SF of industrial/R&D space and the first flagged hotel in the area; and the South Bronx’s 385 Gerard Avenue(pictured), which will be repositioned into a 12-story, 430k-SF Class A office building. |
 |
| One of the Rechlers’ largest projects, the 300-acre, 3M-SF office/industrial development of Enterprise Park at Calverton in Riverhead, is on the drawing board, but they don’t expect a shovel in the ground for at least another three years. In the interim, they’re certainly not twiddling their thumbs. Work leaves little time for play for these execs, although they did relax over the holiday. |
