Robert Martin Co., an iconic force in Westchester and Fairfield County real estate for some six decades, has announced the signing of approximately 400,000 square feet in leases during the first half of 2021, including new tenants, renewing tenants and those expanding their footprints.
“There”™s activity and it”™s stronger in some segments than in others,” CEO Tim Jones, told the Business Journal this morning. “For some period of time in 2020 people were not making any decisions. There was a pent-up demand for people to make decisions that had been postponed for a while. People are making decisions again, which they didn”™t for a while because of the uncertainty from Covid.”
Jones described the leasing activity so far this year as being very robust.
“Most of our buildings are flex space and industrial rather than pure office, so most of those leases were in those kinds of buildings,” Jones said, while describing the demand for that type of space as being strong again.
“The pricing on that kind of space is pretty much what it was pre-Covid,” he said.
Jones said that Robert Martin Co. is structuring its portfolio for the long-term and that includes expansion.
“We”™re always in the market looking for opportunities of a certain type but we”™re also willing to be sellers at the right time,” Jones said. “We have some sales transactions that we”™re working on right now that are refining the portfolio to what we view as the best long-term investment portfolio for us, which is more focused on residential and industrial and less on office although we have a fair amount of office in our flex parks too and that type of office space we see continued demand for.”
Jones said that in addition to being active in Westchester and Fairfield counties, the company has broadened its holdings from a geographic standpoint.
“It”™s not just Westchester and Fairfield. We have other investments in Connecticut and New Jersey. We have a big business in the Carolinas, in North Carolina and South Carolina; that”™s a very, very active business. We have some investments which we”™ve increased quite a bit in Florida,” he said.
Among the major leases the firm signed in the first half of the year were with Tierpoint for a 131,078-square-feet renewal at 11 and 17 Skyline Drive in Hawthorne; Conri Services Inc. for a 41,511-square-feet renewal at 5 Skyline Drive, Hawthorne; and LaserShip Inc for a 40,000-square-feet new lease at 650 West Ave. in Stamford.
