Wanted in Westchester County: 40,000 to 50,000 square feet of corporate office and warehouse space for Jan. 1, 2009 occupancy.
Contact: Brandon Steiner, CEO of Steiner Sports Marketing and Memorabilia Inc. and “disappointed” tenant of New Roc City in New Rochelle.
Caveat to brokers: Will consider leasing anywhere in the county but in City of New Rochelle.
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At 33 LeCount Place in downtown New Rochelle, Brandon Steiner is not a happy tenant. He yearns to decamp.
The one-man sports marketing company he started 21 years ago with $4,000 in capital and has grown into a $50 million-a-year business recently moved its 10-employee marketing division to midtown Manhattan. At year”™s end, when his New Roc City lease expires, Steiner plans to relocate the remaining 110 employees at his company”™s 25,000-square-foot headquarters to “a place where we”™re wanted and where a landlord will really appreciate us,” he said last week.
That has not been the case at New Roc City and in New Rochelle, the blunt-speaking Steiner claimed. When his company moved there in early 2001, it had 45 employees, he said. Today it employs 120 as a subsidiary of Omnicom Group Inc., a Manhattan-based holding company that last year reported $12.7 billion in total revenue and $975.7 million in net income from its international portfolio of advertising, specialty communications, interactive media and marketing services companies such as Steiner Sports.
“We”™ve been one of the most prestigious and one of the biggest companies to move to New Rochelle,” said the Scarsdale resident, who has built his company”™s success on his wide network of contacts in professional and college sports. He has used those to serve both corporate and Joe- Blow America”™s desire to bask in the aura of celebrated athletes and collect their autographs and game mementoes, while in turn athletes, pro teams and universities in marketing partnerships with Steiner maintain and build their fan and income base.
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Yet his company is not big enough to get its just due in New Rochelle, in Steiner”™s view. “Everything gets done for the big boys,” he said. “They just care about the Trumps and the Cappellis,” alluding to two developers, Donald Trump and Louis Cappelli, prominently involved in the mixed-use redevelopment of downtown New Rochelle.
Cappelli Enterprises Inc., Steiner”™s landlord at New Roc City, plans a $50-million reconstruction project to reposition the four-story, 1.2-million-square-foot complex for national department-store retailers. The Valhalla-based developer in May announced that Target Corp. plans to open a 160,000-square-foot anchor store there by October 2010. Last week Cappelli said a Kohl”™s department store will be the other anchor retail tenant there. It will be the fourth store opened in Westchester County by Kohl”™s Illinois Inc.
“This place hasn”™t been what we thought it was going to be when we moved in,” Steiner said. “We”™ve brought jobs here. We”™ve hired a lot of local people. We”™ve done our part around here. I don”™t know what these buildings (at New Roc City) are doing standing empty. We bought the hype. It”™s completely disillusioning here.”
A spokesman for Cappelli said the developer did not want to reply to Steiner”™s remarks.
Mayor Noam Bramson was the CEO”™s chief target of criticism. Steiner said when he went to the mayor for parking concessions for his employees, Bramson offered a limited number of spaces at half-price. That did not satisfy Steiner, who also was displeased that the mayor has never visited the Steiner Sports Marketing office.
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“I”™m disappointed in the City of New Rochelle,” he said. “The mayor”™s done nothing to keep us and make it work here. I just think if New Rochelle wanted to keep us, the mayor would have stepped up. ”¦ He just doesn”™t give a hoot.”
Bramson in an e-mail responded to Steiner”™s comments:
“The City of New Rochelle always works diligently to address the interests of businesses, both large and small. Mr. Steiner has a unique style that could be described, diplomatically, as challenging. Despite this, our staff bent over backwards to develop a reasonable parking proposal aimed at meeting his company’s needs. Unfortunately, fairness to other businesses in the area does not permit us to offer what Mr. Steiner seems to want. I wish the Steiner employees good luck in the future.”
Steiner said his business relations with Cappelli have not been good but dismissed their disagreements as “water under the bridge.” Still, as a New Roc City tenant, “This experience just really can”™t end fast enough,” he said.
Steiner also is a partner with Mariano Rivera, the New York Yankee relief-pitching star, in Mo”™s New York Grill, a downtown New Rochelle restaurant. The sports marketer might be seen there in the company of Rivera or Yankee star Derek Jeter, one of several Yankee and New York Giants athletes whom Steiner has brought to New Rochelle, but don”™t expect Lou Cappelli to make a celebrity appearance.
“I wouldn”™t say the two of us are going to go out for cocktails together,” Steiner said.
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