Building Blocks

How many buildings do you own? Sixty buildings, mostly mixed-use in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. The lions share of our buildings are in Park Slope, though. How many units? Approximately 325 apartments and 75 commerBy Jane C. Timm cial units. Our smallest is a four-story townhouse with four apartments at 16 St. Marks Place in Park Slope, and our largest is a 30,000-square-foot Manhattan commercial building at 1504 Third Avenue TD Bank and Lenox Hill Hospital rent the space. Your whole family is in the business? I work with my brother, Matthew, and my brother-in-law, Scott. Mom keeps us on the straight and narrow. Its a family affair.

Vital Stats:
Name: Michael Pintchik
Age: 60 Hometown: Born in Brooklyn, raised in Hewlett, Long Island Currently living in: Carnegie Hill, Manhattan

Accidental landlords
Your family is known for owning Pintchik Discount Hardware. How did you end up in real estate? We started off with hardware stores we had about 13 of them at the peak. We had one in Astoria, and in 1982, someone threw something through the front of the building and it started a fire. We called up our landlord to say there had been a fire and she said, Sonny boy, I have no idea how to put this back together. We suggested that wed buy the building and fix it up. Later, the Gap came along and offered to pay us more in rent than we were making as a hardware store, so the Gap won out, and we found out that we liked being landlords. How did you build the business from there? After buying the building in Astoria, we started buying two to four buildings a year. One day, we realized we were much more of a real estate company than a retail company, so we sold the rest of our hardware stores with the exception of the one here in Park Slope, which is celebrating its 100th year this year! Why did you concentrate on Park Slope? We had a fairly strong reputation in this area of Brooklyn. Instead of putting their property up for sale, people would call us and say they were planning to move, and were we interested? We bought a lot of property off-market. Tenant horror story? We had a tenant who had a furniture store on the ground level. When they moved out, we found that the back room 2,000 square feet was filled floor to ceiling with trash. In the 10 years theyd been there, theyd never thrown anything out. It took us 160 cubic yards of dumpster to empty out the space.

What are you planning to do with that site? If it were up to us, wed put a simple glass box called the Apple Store there. Weve reached out to [Apple] to have them consider it, but we have nothing to report at this time. It deserves a really high-quality tenant that a lot of people would like to see. We had McDonalds approach us, and weve turned them down on multiple occasions. We dont feel that theyre going to help us create the fabric that were trying to produce we want to be more artisanal. What about your properties along Flatbush Avenue? Were probably the majority property owner on Flatbush between Atlantic Avenue and Grand Army Plaza 43 of our buildings front on Flatbush Avenue. During the next 18 to 24 months, were going to start developing one or two of our sites. Were planning mixed-use buildings, probably six stories tall. Its going to add about 120 apartments. Were going to be able to create some larger retail spaces, too, but we want to be really careful over who we put there. Maybe Trader Joes? Uniqlo? Were trying to create that more Soho, Dumbo, West Village feeling in terms of the tenants. You sold some buildings to Forest City Ratner for about $4 million what went into that decision? We sold three buildings and [they] became part of the new Nets arena. We recently met with Bruce Ratner to talk about the area. Hes also very concerned about getting the right kind of tenants in and around there, and he met with us to sound out as to what our plans were. Hes looking for it to be an upscale, fun environment. We had a great conversation. TRD
1504 Third Avenue

Pintchiks Manhattan and Brooklyn properties

Building a Neighborhood
Youre known for being selective about your tenants last month, you turned down an offer from Hooters to lease space across the street from the new Barclays Center. Why? We turn down about 70 percent of the people that come to us with offers. Its our belief that through very careful editing, we can make the neighborhood nicer and more interesting and at the same time do good business. In the long run, itll pay off in tenant retention.

48 June 2012 www.TheRealDeal.com

PHOTOGRAPH FOR THE REAL DEAL BY CHRIS MARTIN