sabre real estate

12.08.2011 Dealmakers | Sabre Real Estate Group, LLC | Focused on the future
By Dealmakers

Sabre Real Estate Group, LLC is a full-service retail real estate brokerage firm specializing in tenant and landlord representation throughout the New York metropolitan area. The company was founded in May of this year by managing principal Jayson Siano and principal Ken Breslin.

Prior to forming Sabre, Siano served as co-director of the retail services division at CB Richard Ellis, and his experience with a larger, global firm inspired him to take a different approach to retail real estate. Having initially begun his career at Breslin Realty, he approached Ken Breslin with the idea of combining the mentality and resources of a large corporation with the speed and efficiency of a small, private company in order to create a firm offering the best of both worlds. “Fortunately for us, we were able to take the history, experience and resources of Breslin Realty and tweak them for the new world,” Siano said. A larger, national firm with multiple offices, he added, is unlikely to offer the same level of retail knowledge and expertise in each of its office locations, and there are relatively few companies with dedicated retail experts servicing the New York metropolitan area. “Unfortunately, when you’re trying to cover so much ground, you can’t be great at everything,” Siano said. “We’re not trying to be good at office or industrial leases; we’re very focused, and our territory is very specific. If you had to have triple bypass surgery, would you go to a general practitioner?”

The New York area is one of the fortunate parts of the country that was not as heavily impacted by the recession; the market Sabre handles has remained fairly stable even at the worst of times, Siano said, and has continued to improve in recent years. Of course, no area of the country escaped the downturn unscathed, and Sabre’s business model is based around the “new normal” that has since developed within the industry, he explained. “Compared to 2005, when you could basically think of a retailer and there was a good chance they’d be looking to expand, they are now fewer and farther between, so you really have to be very good in order to win business,” Siano said. “In a lot of ways, this economy has right-sized the industry, and we’ve welcomed that. When everything was good, and you could just pick up the phone and make a deal, there were a lot of residential brokers who thought they were retail specialists as well, and it gave some of us a bad name. We’re glad that it’s back to a much more competitive market; those people are really no longer around.” Also, he added, establishing and building the firm during the downturn has put Sabre in an ideal position for when the economy has corrected itself. “With Ken Breslin and myself combining forces, we knew that it wouldn’t be as difficult as [launching] a startup, since we already both have substantial businesses,” he said. “Now, when everything turns around, and everyone is back to full speed ahead, we’ll be set up to ride the waves, as opposed to starting when you’re already at the peak.”

In the months since its inception, the company has already taken on a number of exclusive retail clients throughout its region, including Starbucks, Ulta, Chili’s, Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza, Wendy’s, Maggiano’s, Dots and others, and currently has more than 50 property listings throughout Long Island and Queens, NY. Notable transactions have included a 15,000 sq.ft. lease with Modell’s for a former Walgreens in Oceanside, NY; leases with Dots for 5,000 sq.ft. and 6,000 sq.ft. in Bayonne and North Bergen, NJ, respectively, and a 5,000 sq.ft. Orange Theory Fitness at Huntington Square Mall, located in East Northport, NY – a lease which marked the concept’s first location on Long Island. Sabre maintains a franchise services group that supports franchisors as well as master franchisees, area developers and individual franchisees; and also operates a division solely devoted to restaurant representation. The company is also mindful of potential conflicts between clients, and will not take on tenant representation assignments for competing businesses. “We’re very selective in who we work with, and we always have the tenant’s best interest in mind – even when it means not making a deal, or steering someone in a different direction,” Siano said. “We pride ourselves in looking at each potential location as if we were involved as investors; we would never facilitate a transaction just for the sake of getting the deal done and making a commission.”

Sabre offers its tenant representation services nationwide, he added, but enlists the help of local experts when dealing with areas outside of its primary region. “A large corporation will pass [a client] off to their local office, with no retail expert in it, to try to keep it in-house; we’ll refer that client to the best retail professional in that market,” Siano said. “Our clients will ask us to go outside of our boundaries because of the level of service we provide – they feel they’re not going to get that same service elsewhere. But if we don’t have the right support in those local markets, we’re not going to operate there. We won’t take an assignment that we can’t service to the best of our ability.”

The company also provides landlord representation for several million square feet of retail space throughout the New York metro area, including both properties owned by large national corporations and single-tenant buildings held by local landlords, Siano said, adding that this is still largely a tenant’s market in the region, but that landlords with class-“A” real estate are still able to get what they want out of negotiations. Sabre also offers investment sales services, but in its early months has focused more on the representation aspect of the business, with plans to increase its investment sales segment going forward. “We look at ourselves as a one-stop shop for all things retail real estate-related,” Siano said. “We’re actually in conversations with a few successful people in that arena that we would consider bringing on to enhance our investment services platform. It’s a line of business we think we could definitely increase substantially.”

Looking to the year ahead, Siano said the company will continue to seek out new tenant and landlord clients, as well as bring on additional brokers, “The idea behind Sabre was that there’s a void in the marketplace: There are very few alternatives for retailers and property owners,” he said. “Our success in only seven months, with more than 40 signs on the street, a dozen national companies that we exclusively represent, and a couple million square feet out of the gate, really confirms that belief.”