Winick Realty Group, a more than 40-year-old retail brokerage that has represented a who’s who list of retail clients and landlords in New York, has renamed itself and promoted company veterans as part of the new management team.
Winick, founded in 1982 by famed retail power broker Jeff Winick, has changed its name to RTL, a play on the word retail, the brokerage said in a statement this week. Longtime company veteran Steven Baker, who has been with the firm for nearly three decades, has been named CEO, while Lee Block, who has been with the firm since 2008, was promoted as president.
Both were previously the firm’s managing principals, a spokesperson told CoStar News.
Several longtime brokers have also stepped into partner roles, RTL said.
While RTL will continue to focus on the company’s core retail leasing services and represent tenants and owners, including such tenants as AT&T and Chipotle, and landlords including TF Cornerstone, the Brodsky Organization, and the Durst Organization, it’s also expanding its investment sales with a dedicated unit, the spokesperson said. The unit will focus on finding off-market deals that suit the acquisition and disposition needs of clients for commercial properties spanning all asset classes across the New York market and the country, RTL said.
Company founder Winick will remain with the company as a top broker and mentor, RTL said. The broker stepped down from a leadership position at his namesake firm in 2021, when he was also forced to sell his majority stake in the company at the time as part of a personal bankruptcy case, according to Commercial Observer.
The rebranding comes as New York’s retail market has shown solid signs of rebound from the pandemic, helped by a growing number of tourists and office workers who have returned to the city.
First-quarter Manhattan retail availability across prime corridors fell to 13.5%, the lowest level in 10 years and a “substantial improvement” from the pandemic peak of 27.8% in 2021, according to a Cushman & Wakefield study. Retail leasing volume in the first quarter rose 4.6% to 1.3 million square feet from the first quarter of 2019 pre-pandemic, the brokerage said.