RXR Chairman and CEO Scott Leshler and Rudin Administration Co-Chairman Invoice Rudin converse at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha occasion in New York on November 13, 2025.
Adam Jeffrey | CNBC
New York Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani’s views have raised considerations that companies and capital will go away town. However two of town’s prime industrial actual property executives say that’s merely not true, on condition that the plan has not been withdrawn by means of the Democratic Socialist Social gathering’s official election, and that there was rental exercise and funding in new buildings since Mamdani’s victory turned clear.
“New York Metropolis is again,” RXR CEO Scott Lechler stated Thursday at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha convention in New York. “The individuals who work right here and reside right here really feel the power and have the beliefs and have each proper,” he stated.
“Proper now in our enterprise, we now have CEO after CEO contributing to this metropolis,” Rechler stated. “Workplace constructing leases are at report ranges, and that is not only for subsequent yr, however for 2028, 2030 and 2032,” he added.
“We anticipate greater than 40 million sq. toes of economic workplace leases to be signed on the finish of this yr,” stated Invoice Rudin, co-executive chairman of Rudin Administration. “Companies are rising right here,” he says. Relating to Mamdani’s actions since his election, he stated, “Now we have not seen a lower in conferences with securities firms.” “Folks preserve saying, ‘What is the affect?’ No one’s placing down a pencil. No one’s calling the shifting vehicles. Companies are increasing and taking over house,” Rudin stated.
One good instance is Ken Griffin of Citadel Securities, a hedge fund billionaire recognized for being outspoken about his conservative political beliefs. Rudin, together with Steve Ross, Vornado Realty And Griffin is breaking floor on a brand new 2 million sq. foot workplace constructing at 350 Park Avenue. “Ken is enthusiastic and intends to have extra staff at 350 Park than in Miami,” Rudin stated. And though the plan predates Mamdani’s rise, Rudin stated they just lately utilized for a constructing allow and that Griffin is a accomplice within the venture. “So he is shifting ahead, he is very excited, and he is very concerned within the design and growth of the venture. … How do you prefer it?” Rudin added.
RXR simply signed a 300,000-square-foot lease with a legislation agency that can transfer in 2029, however Rechler famous that the agency returned final week after the election and stated it wants an extra 200,000 sq. toes of growth. JPMorgan’s new constructing might want to seat an extra 5,000 folks on prime of the ten,000 it will probably already accommodate.
Rechler famous that his firm already has an anchor tenant for a 2.8 million-square-foot venture that can substitute the Hyatt resort by 2031-2032. “Folks imagine in New York,” he stated. He added that RXR has $7 billion in venture financing and that “if folks do not imagine in the way forward for New York, you do not perceive it,” however stated it might require “a barely longer lens.”
However even now, after Mr Mamdani’s election, the right phrase to make use of for tenants within the high-quality workplace house market is “urgency” in closing, he stated, noting that he has heard reviews of firms signing leases that will usually take a yr to be agreed inside 21 days. “That is the market. … An enormous pipeline on the workplace facet. I’ve by no means seen it in my profession and I’ve by no means seen tenant demand as robust as it’s proper now,” Rechler stated.
“As of in the present day and yesterday, the data we’re getting in actual time is that tenants are nonetheless available in the market and searching for good, high quality house,” Rudin stated.
One cause for the bullish outlook for New York’s actual property market is the necessity to entice and retain younger skilled expertise.
“The expertise that firms need is correct right here in New York Metropolis,” Rudin stated.
“All these younger professionals wish to reside in New York,” Rechler added, citing a 1.5% emptiness price within the metropolis’s multifamily actual property market. “Folks wish to be right here,” he stated.
Their views on the mayor (each actual property firm executives have met with him) should not with out reservations.
“Mamdani would not essentially align with the heartland of capitalism,” Rechler stated. “That is the most important threat. Now we have a person who’s extra of a caricature than a personality,” he stated, including that it might simply outline Mamdani as an inexperienced social media savvy sociopath.
Rechler stated this threat is especially prevalent amongst overseas institutional buyers. “Once I go away city and journey world wide, folks have numerous anxiousness,” he says. “There might be an affect on overseas buyers in multifamily housing tasks in New York. All they hear is ‘hire freeze,’ all they hear is that phrase… there’ll in all probability be a backlash,” Rechler stated, citing the truth that the mayor has the ability to nominate officers to the board that oversees these insurance policies.
Due to this realization, some institutional buyers with whom RXR was speaking about making giant investments in New York Metropolis are “saying they wish to again out and see what the result is,” Rechler stated. He added that the tone of those conversations suggests there could also be a “chilling of capital flows” amongst these buyers.
“I have been to the Center East and Europe, and the very first thing folks wish to discuss is Mamdani,” he stated. Rechler, who can be a board member of the New York Fed, stated the matters are the identical. “The New York Fed boardroom desires to speak about this, and workers members who journey world wide are being requested questions on their travels.”
However all actual property CEOs confused that these considerations appear overblown for a metropolis that has survived and thrived by means of the coronavirus, the monetary disaster, 9/11 and the de Blasio administration. In addition they famous that New York had a $60 billion finances when Michael Bloomberg was mayor. With a present finances of $116 billion, they imagine Mr. Mamdani’s administration strategy could also be extra pragmatic than his marketing campaign platform suggests.
“When he first began operating, there was no non-public sector in housing. He moved away from that,” Rudin stated. He added that when “very liberal Greenwich Village Congressman Ed Koch” turned mayor, he realized he wanted to maneuver downtown to get issues accomplished. “I hope Mayor-elect Mamdani understands that we now have a $116 billion finances to handle and administer.”
Rudin stated the problems the mayor-elect has raised, akin to housing affordability and availability, are professional points and “we are going to attempt to work with him.”
Zoran Mamdani, Democratic candidate for New York mayor, speaks at an election rally in Manhattan, New York Metropolis, USA, on October 13, 2025.
Angelina Katsanis | Reuters
“The identical issues which are driving Mr. Mamdani’s success are the identical ones which are driving Mr. Trump’s success,” Rudin stated, pointing to financial disenfranchisement, particularly younger individuals who really feel they do not have the identical financial alternatives as earlier generations. “There’s frustration with huge enterprise and authorities, and so they need solutions,” he stated. “Now the mayor-elect has given a straightforward reply, however frankly it is probably not viable,” he stated.
However Rudin famous that since Mamdani’s early campaigns, he has signaled a willingness to maneuver away from having the federal government dictate housing completely and to work with the non-public sector, including that now “it’s our accountability to point out Mamdani the trail of tips on how to construct the housing we want.”
“I talked to him earlier than the election,” Rudin stated. “My sense is that this can be a very good younger man who’s prepared to hear and hearken to opinions on points.”
The housing affordability disaster won’t be simply solved. Rudin famous that Mayor Eric Adams’ administration aimed to make Mamdani successful by altering zoning legal guidelines throughout the borough throughout the final yr, however actual property executives stated wages, unions, sustainable growth insurance policies and tax adjustments that make constructing greater than 100 models much less economically engaging are all obstacles. “So it must be a time for labor, the governor, town council, the mayor to return collectively…if they need housing and we want it too,” Rudin stated.
Actual property executives cited tax incentives created within the wake of the coronavirus to permit the conversion of older workplace buildings into residential properties as one other space the place they will help construct inexpensive housing, and stated these incentives are tied to buildings that preserve 25% of their models at inexpensive rents reasonably than market charges.
Rechler identified that regardless of Mamdani’s wealthy rhetoric about taxes, the truth is that New York governors have had important fiscal authority over town for the reason that monetary disaster of the Seventies. “On the finish of the day, the governor has veto energy over taxes,” Rechler stated. “I had breakfast along with her yesterday, and he or she informed me that revenue taxes can’t be raised on her watch.”
He added that there might be political strain on the governor, given the necessity for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s personal election.
“There is a gubernatorial election in a yr, and he or she has to behave as that firewall, in any other case she will not be governor in a yr,” Rechler stated. “The gubernatorial election might be a contest for Mamdani.”
For now, Rechler stated maybe what’s most telling about his interactions with Mamdani is the comparability to former New York Metropolis Mayor Invoice de Blasio’s interactions with enterprise leaders throughout his rise as a star.
“I met with [Mamdani] Recalling a September assembly when the election outcome was sure, Rechler stated: “He spent an hour alone, however he got here ready, pivoted from a marketing campaign mindset to a governance mindset, and stated all the proper issues. The proof is implicit, however he acknowledges that he must depend on public-private partnerships, and that is the one option to construct the kind of housing he desires.”
“I wish to distinction that with after I met with de Blasio,” Rechler added. He stated it was a gathering of 12 enterprise leaders, and the previous mayor “appeared across the desk of enterprise folks and stated, ‘None of you elected me, so I am not right here to serve you.'” And we have lived with that for eight years. This man at the least begins with, “I do know that to achieve success, I would like enterprise folks to work with.”
