Page 52 - 2024 Westchester County Economic Development Guide

50
WESTCHESTER COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
Real Estate
On the Upswing RM Friedland’s Sarah Jones-Maturo shares her perspective on what 2024
holds for Westchester’s commercial real estate market.
As president of RM Friedland LLC, the largest privately held commercial real estate brokerage company in Westchester, Sarah Jones-Maturo led a complete rebranding of the company in addition to starting new divisions within the firm that focus on investment sales and office product (respectively) with some of the market’s leading brokers.
Here, she shares her 2024 outlook for Westchester’s commercial real estate market.
A Busy Retail Sector
With the challenging interest rate environment, the sole asset type to achieve growth in year over year pricing on a per square foot basis was retail. is was precipitated by a number of Class A building sale transactions including e Source in White Plains, which was sold by UBS’s real estate group.
Experiential Will Remain Strong
Before the pandemic, the experiential demand in the market was tremendous. is experiential space includes areas like kids’ and adult entertainment, boutique fitness, and sports. is demand grinded to a halt during the pandemic, for obvious reasons, but has experienced a resurgence to pre-pandemic levels.
An Improving Office Market
From a leasing perspective, the office market is improving. Tenants continue to right-size their footprints and look for deals in the market. We anticipate leases to be healthy in 2024. Levels will not reach pre-pandemic, but we think there will be improvements year over year.
Groundbreaking Industrial Projects
Pricing continues to steadily increase for industrial space, driven by tremendously low supply. We expect a new groundbreaking in a speculative construction project this year, at 14 and 16 Skyline Drive in Hawthorne. e develop- ers there will seek two industrial users. We expect industrial prices to continue to increase, and in some cases achieve levels similar to B and C office space.
Things Are Looking Up
In general, 2024 will be a better year for commercial real estate in the County. Last year, sales volume experienced a precipitous drop and sales volume for multifamily was down as much as 68%, due in large part to rising interest rates. From a sales perspective, things can only go up from 2023. We are optimistic about leasing for the year ahead as well.
Above: Sarah Jones-Maturo
Below: Rendering of a new industrial development at 14-16 Skyline Drive in Hawthorne, slated to break ground this year..
© Courtesy of RM Friedland
© Courtesy of RM Friedland