2024 Spring Issue of Urban Land - 59

and even sued many tenants. How did you
change that reputation and turn around
the property?
Soloviev: My father was always wild at work,
from the time I was a kid-he settled down
the last 10 years-but it was easy to have a
falling out.
There was a lot of mending fences with the
tenants, potential tenants, and the brokerages.
I go on the tours with the brokers and tenants,
and I am giving my all to my tenants and
working well with the brokers.
I took the vacancy from 30 percent to 10
percent, and occupancy is now crossing 96
percent, and it is the hottest address in the
city. It's the best commercial building in the
world-in amenities, for services, and for prioritizing
the tenants. Obviously, we've now taken
the vacancy down to next to nothing, with
some of the highest rents in the city.
I put $45 million into amenity spaces-I
could put ... $1 billion into amenities. It was
necessary, and it's never been as full, and had
never reached 100 percent [occupancy].
The 27th floor is a [tenant] amenity floor
with a full [Central] Park view, and you can
have coffee there for breakfast or host 150
people without leaving the building.
We revamped and redid the elevator
cabs and relit the lobby and put in personal
touches with plants.
The basement is now an 11,000-squarefoot
(1,022 sqm) full fitness center with a cold
plunge pool and a hot pool, and it's a gym
you won't see anywhere else. There's also a
big skylight that brings in natural light.
And it goes with the taste and the address.
Nine West has been so much fun, but
it was an uphill battle cleaning up the city
region.
UL: You own a big development site
across 57th Street-also known as
Biliionaire's Row-with about 240 feet of
frontage. What are your plans for that?
Soloviev: People are always calling me to
see if I'm going to sell it, but we are keeping
it, and it's all about protecting the southern
views from 9 West.
UL: Your city region also includes what
is, for New York, a huge, 6.7-acre (2.7
ha) site just south of the United Nations,
between First Avenue and the FDR Drive
by the East River. Your father bought that
former power plant site for $600 million
and obtained approvals for a hotel and
three residential buildings. But you've
now partnered with Mohegan as one of
a dozen groups hoping to win one of the
three downstate casino licenses. What do
you now envision for that site?
Soloviev: That's Freedom Plaza, where we
want to build two hotels, one of which is a
1,250-room hotel with an underground casino
and massive underground parking garage, a
museum, and affordable housing. Our plan has
five to 10 times more affordable housing than
our competition. There will be 4.8 acres (1.9
ha) dedicated to community uses as a green
space-open park.
UL: What happens if you don't get the
casino license?
Soloviev: I'm in it to win it.
UL: How did you end up buying so much
land out west and founding Crossroads
Agriculture in 1999?
Soloviev: When I left for Arizona, I had
changed my name to Soloviev, and it was
partly to differentiate myself from my father.
Futures really excited me because you can
have an account worth $100, and it could be
worth minus $1,000 the next day.
The first commodity I bought was sugar,
and then for about five years I only did currency
and metals.
Then I started to notice grains. I started
noticing the arbitrage between July and
December-those massive 10 percent jumps.
You could borrow money and make it happen.
I was getting obsessed with grain, and
Wichita was the center of it. After my father
asked me to come back to New York, I moved
my [land] operation to Scottsbluff, Nebraska.
But we had a massive, massive argument,
and I stayed in [the Hamptons] for that whole
year, just trading, and then I came back in at
age 29.
SPRING 202 4
URBAN LAND
59
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