Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Real Estate

Top-shelf broker is bolting Cushman for JLL

Another marquee-name dealmaker has left Cushman & Wakefield: vice-chairman and retail powerhouse Robert Gibson. He’s jumped to JLL, where he’ll direct and enlarge that company’s currently also-ran Manhattan retail platform.

Gibson, who was at Cushman since 2007, earned the global firm’s Top Overall Producer Award in 2012. He repped H&M in two mega-transactions that year totaling more than 100,000 square feet on Fifth Avenue and at 4 Times Square, and more recently brought H&M to a planned 63,000 square feet at Herald Center.

Gibson plans to go on a hiring binge at JLL: “Things are going to change in the next three months,” he told us. “I’m here half a day and I’m already talking to five or six brokers to come on board.”

He had only praise for Cushman, but said JLL would “allow me to build a very large retail group.” He cited JLL’s “extraordinary national reach and internal culture of collaboration.” JLL tristate president, Peter Riguardi, said Gibson’s deep relationships in the retail world “will enable us to significantly enhance our existing retail service platform.”

While Gibson’s exit from Cushman hardly leaves his old firm reeling, it’s hard not to view it in context of other recent defections.

Cushman’s tristate president, Ron LoRusso, notes that in 2013 the company’s global leasing volume was up 7 percent over 2012. It’s closed more than 1,200 deals valued at more than $11 billion in New York, where Crain’s ranked it No. 2 behind only CBRE.

The crown jewel New York office still boasts a galaxy of superstars, including Tara Stacom, leasing agent for 1 World Trade Center, and ever-prolific John Cefaly (see story at right). What LoRusso calls “the strongest retail platform in the country” remains formidable with such names as Bradley Mendelson, Gene Spiegelman and Joanne Podell.

But Cushman has had an image problem, at least, as a dozen-odd high-profile brokers bolted for other firms.

Cushman lost the office leasing team of Andrew Peretz, Andrew Sachs and Timothy Gibson (no relation to Robert) to Newmark Grubb Knight Frank last fall, later joined by Jared Horowitz.

Earlier, two other powerful teams left for JLL — office leasing specialists Mitchell Konsker, Paul Glickman, Matt Astrachan and Alex Chudnoff, and the capital markets quartet of Richard Baxter, Ron Cohen, Jon Caplan and Scott Latham.

The exits occurred against a volatile corporate backdrop. In June 2013, Cushman CEO Glenn Rufrano was pushed out three years after he succeeded Bruce Mosler in the role (Mosler remains as a broker). Rufrano was succeeded on an interim basis by Carlo Sant’Albano, former head of Italian holding company EXOR, which is privately held Cushman’s parent. Edward Forst, whom LoRusso calls a “rock-star” talent, took over the CEO mantle in December.

Insiders said the shifting corporate winds fostered a mood that made it difficult for some top players to “synergize” with other big fish in the company’s far-flung talent pool.

But other sources attributed the Cushman defections simply to big signing bonuses supposedly paid by JLL and Newmark, a point on which no one would comment.

LoRusso crowed over one recent big catch: former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to lead Cushman’s global risk-management services division.

Gibson, meanwhile, isn’t looking back. He’s the national leasing rep for other top clients, including Ferragamo.

Will they follow him to JLL?

“Clients choose whom they want to work with,” he laughed confidently.


Burgers are out, gyros are in at 496 LaGuardia Place in the Village. Pita Grill has signed a 2,700 square-foot lease, replacing Five Guys.

Eastern Consolidated’s James Famularo arranged the lease for the Middle Eastern “fast casual” spot, which will be the chain’s ninth location.

The asking rent was $120 per square foot.