May 16, 2023
Commercial Observer

Power 100 – #50 MaryAnne Gilmartin

MAG Partners scaled its business in a big way during the past year and not long after the company’s birth.

The developer, which MaryAnne Gilmartin founded in July 2020, launched leasing in February for its inaugural New York project, the 480-unit Ruby residential development at 243 West 28th Street in Chelsea. Thirty percent of the units are designated as affordable, and the property includes 8,500 square feet of ground-floor retail. It is named after Black fashion designer Ruby Bailey, and it marked the first of a portfolio of multifamily buildings MAG plans to name after historical and influential women.

“Ruby embodies what we as a company did through the pandemic, where we doubled down on New York and we bet on the city when people were writing its obituary,” Gilmartin said. “We managed to get the financing and the construction underway in very, very difficult circumstances. And now, behold, we have this beautiful building.”

Two other New York City projects from MAG began to take shape in the past year, including at 335 Eighth Avenue, where demolition has begun for a 188-unit rental building. MAG’s project team also assembled a development site at 300 East 50th Street with plans for construction later this year.

Gilmartin also led MAG’s expansion into the Baltimore market by joining with MacFarlane Partners in May 2022 on a 177-acre master-planned community project in South Baltimore. The

1.1 million-square-foot mixed-use development also includes sponsorship from Sagamore Ventures, the family office of Under Armour founder and chairman Kevin Plank, as well as Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group. Since taking over in the developer role, Gilmartin

has signed two commercial leases and an extended-stay hotel development deal, and also started the residential lease-up of nearly 600 units, with a 20 percent affordable component.

“We’ll always be a New York company, but our love of New York and our ability to do what we do, which is to build multiple asset classes and think really big and boldly, brought us to Baltimore,” Gilmartin said. “I think that that was a high-water mark for us to grow the company outside of New York and actually put a flag in the dirt in Baltimore.”

Growing MAG’s footprint into Baltimore contributed to the company more than tripling its employee roster. It now has 33 on staff, 50 percent of them female.



View Source
May 8, 2023
Commercial Observer

Lidl to Open New 23K SF Grocery Store in Chelsea

A new Lidl grocery store is headed to 335 Eighth Avenue and it’s anything but little, Commercial Observer has learned. 

Lidl inked a 15-year deal for 23,000 square feet at the base of the affordable housing development between West 26th and West 27th streets, according to developer MAG Partners.

Asking rents were $150 per square foot on the ground floor and $65 per square foot in the basement, according to landlord broker Cushman & Wakefield. The new outpost — set to open in 2025 — will be Germany-based Lidl’s second in Manhattan, after it debuted in Harlem at 2187 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in February 2021. 

Lidl also has locations in Staten Island and Queens and plans to “open even more stores” in the next few years, including a Brooklyn outpostOr Raitses, senior director of real estate for Lidl’s New York region, said in a statement.

As part of MAG’s deal with 335 Eighth’s owner — the board of the neighboring housing cooperative — to build the 188-unit residential building, it was required to find a low-cost supermarket for the retail space, and Lidl fit the bill, according to MAG.

“Lidl shares our commitment to the greater Chelsea community and will bring excellent service and products to this neighborhood,” MaryAnne Gilmartin, founder and CEO of MAG, said in a statement. 

MAG will break ground on the seven-story project this month, demolishing the existing retail building previously occupied by a McDonald’s, a Gristedes supermarket and restaurant Taco Bandito.

CBRE’s Stephen SjursetDavid LaPierreRobert Bonicoro and Duane Davis brokered the deal for Lidl while Alan SchmerzlerSean MoranCatherine Merck and Patrick O’Rourke of C&W represented MAG. A spokesperson from CBRE declined to comment.

Celia Young can be reached at [email protected].



View Source
May 8, 2023
Baltimore Business Journal

Clyde’s Restaurant Group to take over Baltimore Peninsula’s Rye Street Tavern

A Washington D.C. restaurant group is expanding to Baltimore with plans to take over a waterfront tavern in the Baltimore Peninsula development.



View Source