Developer and Charney Companies founder Sam Charney opened up about his real estate history in the first episode of The Real Deal’s “The Industry Dish” series.
Charney shared his road to success while cooking a steak and pasta dinner inside the Gaggenau Test Kitchen in Manhattan. The developer grew up in The Big Apple and bore witness to the “grittiness and cultural scene” of the city in the 1980s and ’90s. “That kind of formed who I am and what I bring to development,” he said.
Becoming a developer wasn’t exactly in his career plans as a student at Bates College. He was an art history major whose worldview was changed by a “Picturesque Suburbia” class examining the relationship between the popularization of the automobile and the growth of suburban life in the United States.
“I found it fascinating and really was interested in becoming an urban planner,” he said. He went on to do a summer program for those interested in becoming urban planners or architects, but admittedly felt out of his league at first.
“Everyone around me was so much more talented than I was,” he said. “They were building the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks and I could barely draw a stick figure. And I realized I was definitely in the wrong place.”
He ended up returning to his home city and turned his sights to real estate development as he admired the developer’s role in having “control” over projects that architects don’t enjoy. He likened the role to being a producer of a movie assembling the team of creatives and ensuring the production runs smoothly across all fronts.
After getting his master’s from New York University, Charney began working as a project executive for Two Trees Management, where he spent nearly a decade overseeing the development of more than 1 million square feet of offices and housing.
In 2013, he founded his own firm, Charney Companies, and hasn’t looked back. In the 12 years since then, the Long Island City-based firm has built more than 1,000 units in New York City. Another 3,000 units are in the works.
Charney said his affinity for the outer boroughs arose in childhood and having “negative” experiences visiting his grandparents in Brooklyn. In the early 2000s, as the borough was shaping up for a development rebirth that continues today, he lamented that tenants were forced to seek cheaper options as prices went up.
At the turn of the 2010s, Charney, while working at Two Trees, looked to Long Island City and its myriad industrial spaces ripe for residential conversion and new construction. Charney Companies’ first project, the 11-story Jackson Condominium building in Long Island City, was developed in 2015.
Next stop: Brooklyn. Charney was attracted to the borough by the rezoning of Gowanus and potential for residential development. The pandemic threw a wrench into the plans but he pushed forward upon realization that “New York’s not going anywhere.”
It hasn’t come without its challenges. New construction projects in Manhattan, for example, face height limits and sky exposure plane restrictions, such as the student housing project known as 99 Claremont next to The Riverside Church in Morningside Heights.
“When I saw that, I said, ‘Okay, we need to buy this building,’ because not only is it, cost-wise, below replacement cost, but I don’t think you could actually replace it because of the shape of the building and the depth of the building,” he said. His company pursued the asset despite not having a plan in place and armed with the knowledge that it “had to own” it and “figure it out.”
Charney’s New York upbringing helped ingrain “a tremendous amount of critical thinking” in his everyday life where he prioritized having “real-life experiences” that taught him how to become an effective developer when first getting into construction.
The developer is now in the process of teaching his children how to critically think just as he did. “I’m very fortunate that my children love to read,” he said.
Much like the steaks on the grill, Charney emphasized the importance of “high-quality” ingredients. That includes high-end materials and finishes and a granular focus on every detail of the project in person to ensure delivering the best product possible.
As for those younger people who are interested in getting into real estate, he encouraged them to take any class that would help them get their feet wet in industry knowledge. “You’ll instantly have a cohort of real estate friends to talk with and start to understand the industry,” he said.
“I got lucky; I got thrown on construction sites in my early twenties. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was told, ‘You are now the super, the project manager, everything.’ And I worked 18-hour days to learn and understand how to build a building,” he said. “I learned from the subcontractors and I learned from the consultants, the architects and the engineers, et cetera, and I picked their brains and had conversations with them.” Some of those relationships he still maintains today.
The interview was filmed at B/S/H Home Appliance Corporation’s New York City Experience & Design Center. Thanks to B/S/H for sharing their space and making this interview possible.
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