Brandon Steiner, CEO of Steiner Sports Marketing and Memorabilia Inc., will move his 90-employee business in downtown New Rochelle early next year ”“ but not far. The company he started in 1987 with $4,000 in capital and built into a nearly $50 million-a-year enterprise will remain a tenant in the city a displeased and frustrated Steiner earlier had said he”™d abandon.
“It was the right deal at the right time,” Steiner last week said of the 10-year lease he signed for 40,000 square feet of office and warehouse space at 145 Huguenot St., into which his company will move on March 1, 2009. “Andy made an offer I couldn”™t refuse,” he said, referring to Andrew Greenspan, principal of GHP Office Realty L.L.C. in Harrison, the building”™s owner and manager.
Convenience too was a factor in his decision. The eight-story, 291,000-square-foot office building is one block from the Steiner company”™s current headquarters at 33 LeCount Place in the New Roc City complex and three blocks from Mo”™s New York Grill, the Memorial Highway restaurant in which Steiner has a one-third interest with New York Yankee star and Purchase resident Mariano “Mo” Rivera and another partner. Â Â Â Â Â Â
Steiner last summer expressed his disappointment with New Roc City, the Cappelli Enterprises Inc. development where his company has leased 25,000 square feet for eight years, and with the City of New Rochelle. Saying he was disillusioned by continued vacancies in the 1.2-million-square-foot entertainment complex that opened in 1999 and irked by Mayor Noam Bramson”™s position on parking-fee concessions Steiner had sought for company employees and by the mayor”™s failure to visit the Steiner Sports office, the Scarsdale resident said he would relocate at the end of his lease to “a place where we”™re wanted and where a landlord will really appreciate us” outside of the city.
Steiner last week said he looked at locations in Yonkers and North White Plains. “There was not a lot out there that fit our needs. Either the space was wrong or the price was wrong.”
He said Greenspan offered “a lot more dynamic warehouse space” with room to expand. The landlord also will provide space there for athletes”™ personal-appearance events sponsored by Steiner Sports. The building also has on-site parking, he noted.
“It was a longer, tougher search than I thought but it turned out it was right in front of me across the street. We”™re happy we were able to stay in Westchester and stay in New Rochelle, as it turns out.”
Bramson, who previously said the volatile Steiner”™s “unique style” could be described “diplomatically, as challenging,” said last week: ”˜”™I am pleased that Steiner was able to reach a suitable accommodation, and we look forward to the continuing contributions of Steiner”™s employees to the economic and civic life of New Rochelle.”
“We”™re in the middle of a lot of things right now,” Steiner said of his company, a subsidiary of Omnicom Group Inc., a Manhattan-based holding company with an international portfolio of advertising, specialty communications, interactive media and marketing services companies. Steiner Sports last month announced a new sports collectibles partnership agreement with the University of Alabama, whose football team is first in the nation”™s Bowl Championship Series rankings. The Crimson Tide joins an exclusive Steiner roster of professional and collegiate teams and pro athletes that include the Dallas Cowboys, Yankees, Yankee captain Derek Jeter, New York Giant Eli Manning, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, former Yankee and Dodgers manager Joe Torre, Notre Dame University and the CEO”™s alma mater, Syracuse University.
Steiner said company revenue is flat or “down a little bit” this year, though its Web business in collectibles is up. He and an as yet unannounced partner group plan in 2009 to nationally franchise his Last Licks Ice Cream stores, four of which are in Westchester, including a Rye Brook flagship store that opened this year.
“In times like this, people might not go to buy expensive memorabilia, but they will go to buy ice cream,” said Steiner, who has opened six stores since 2002. “It makes them feel good.”
Despite a slump in retail sales, his company”™s marketing and promotions business with athletes and corporations is doing well, Steiner said. “When times are tough, we definitely see a little bit of a boost in athletic appearances because companies are looking for any differentiation they can find ”¦ just trying to look for any edge in the market.”
Meanwhile, Steiner”™s soon-to-be ex-landlord at New Roc City plans a $50-million reconstruction project to reposition the complex for national department-store retailers. Target Corp. has signed an approximately $30 million purchase agreement for a 160,000-square-foot anchor store that could open by October 2010 and Kohl”™s is in negotiations to open there, Joseph Apicella, executive vice president at Cappelli Enterprises, said last week. No work can begin until lease terminations and relocations of current tenants have been settled, he said.
