While many companies in multiple categories have seen their businesses adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic ranging from mildly hurt to decimated, a Scarsdale property management firm has roughly doubled in size through an acquisition.
Garthchester Realty of 209 Garth Road in Scarsdale, which specializes in property management and sales of co-ops and condominiums in Westchester, Riverdale and Queens, acquired Stillman Management Realty Corp. based in Harrison.
Stillman has managed properties in Westchester, Rockland, southern Connecticut and New York City. Both companies have been providing management services for commercial and residential buildings along with co-op and condo boards and homeowners associations.
“By acquiring Stillman and getting bigger it enables us to increase our purchasing power, get better pricing for our clients, increase our accessibility to additional vendors, and bring additional technology and expertise to our clients,” Brian Scally, a principal of Garthchester, told the Business Journal.
Scally said that he and Garthchester’s other principal, Craig Perusini, have been focusing on the team concept when their company’s approximately 30 employees provide services to clients. Stillman has approximately 45 employees.
“We manage about 72 properties and Stillman manages about 80,” Scally said. The combined operation will serve buildings having a total of approximately 15,000 residential units.
Perusini pointed out that the Stillman acquisition means their “brain trust” has doubled and they”™re adding a lot of knowledge and experience to the operation.
Scally and Perusini plan to serve as co-presidents of the combined companies with Stillman Property Management’s Jeffrey Stillman and Roy Stillman serving as senior vice president of finance and management, respectively. Scally said that Garthchester will be moving to 440 Mamaroneck Ave. in Harrison.
Real estate services firm CBRE arranged a 12,900-square-foot lease for Stillman Management Realty, the entity that was established following Garthchester”™s acquisition of Stillman Property Management. Stillman renewed its 8,000-square-foot lease on the fifth floor of the building in addition to committing to an additional 4,900 square feet of space.
CBRE”™s Budd Wiesenberg and Bob Caruso represented Stillman Management Realty in the negotiations with RPW Group.
“The Stillmans were looking for a succession plan. Craig and I were looking to expand our business, and it worked,” Scally said.
“We actually look at each property as if we were living there, as if we were on the boards,” Scally said. “How would we want the building to be run if we were a shareholder or owner or resident?”
Scally said that between himself, Perusini and the Stillmans, there is more than 100 years of experience in the property management field.
“We”™re very hands on, we”™re very accessible, and we know a lot of the vendors who are out there. We can contact people and say, ”˜I need you to get over here, it”™s an emergency,”™ and they’re usually very responsive,” Scally said.
“I actually started as a building superintendent, so when there are problems I sometimes jump in. I just had a super come to me today about a problem with a ceiling and I’m actually going to go and inspect it and help him.”
Scally said that when forecasters warned that the Tropical Storm Isaias was approaching, “I sent an email to all of our managers: ”˜get prepared; clean off the roofs; tell people with terraces to clean them off; tie the furniture down or bring it inside; make sure the storm drains are clean; can we put glow sticks out?”™”
Scally said that a good thing about managing so many buildings is that their company becomes a priority and can reach out to their vendors and contacts at utilities and get prompt responses.
“We can get directly in,” Perusini added. He described having taken over management of a building at the beginning of the year that had been without gas service for about seven months. After reaching out to their utility company contacts they had the gas on for many of the building”™s units within two weeks.
When Covid-19 arrived, so did numerous new challenges.
“Finding hand sanitizer and masks at the onset was really difficult. We had managers, myself included, going to supply companies and picking things up. One of the ironic pieces was that portable-toilet companies weren’t doing the usual business at events and had hand sanitizer that we were able to purchase,” Scally said.
“We would buy masks en masse and then distribute them to the buildings. To this day we still are stocking supplies because we don’t know what else might come. We put up plastic shields. We put tables six feet away. We put up notices in elevators where people should be standing. Information and knowledge is power. We want to make sure we’re telling our residents as much as we possibly can and updating them constantly.”
“I think the market for building management is relatively stable,” Perusini said. “The product is out there to manage, no matter what. The buildings are already built for the most part, other than the new construction coming in. It’s really Brian’s and my intention to continue to build on what we’ve done here. By incorporating both cultures into one and taking the best of both companies our business will flourish.”
