Sivan Properties, The New Owners of Neam's Market, Speak Out

In the last week I have had an interesting back and forth of messages with the new owners of the old Neam's Market space, which in its last iteration was a Marvelous Market. The exchange began with an email sent jointly to me and Topher Mathews of The Georgetown Metropolitan. It was from Daniel Mermel, on behalf of his family who own Sivan Properties of Port Washington, NY. Daniel and I continued writing to each other after the first message. His tone was open, friendly and welcoming of opinions and advice. He had quite a lot to say and I will include bits of it here in this post, and up top some encouraging news he shared, though confidentially.

Sivan already are vetting possible tenants, pro's in the food/market genre, and he mentioned a name that made me smile. If this person was game to take the lease it would be a WOW. It would make news and be good for Georgetown.  The individual has legacy, reputation, skill and I know his work well. We've been friends for years. So, fingers crossed on that one.  Daniel said, "Still very early, but he’s interested in checking it out and our leasing agent has a good relationship with him." I'm hoping, though, that he also talks to Wagshal's - he said he wanted to - and I shared with the Wagshal's owners, the Fuchs family, the part of Daniel's message that was about them. I urged him to also reach out to Cathal Armstrong, who owns Society Fair, an excellent market, boucherie, bakery and cafe in Old Town Alexandria. 

Here are some highlights of his messages to me.

WHO THEY ARE:

We are a small, privately held family owned business that invests and develops commercial real estate both for our own account and with a select group of partners.  We focus primarily on two metro markets, New York and Washington DC.  With regard to our track record, we are proud of the way we conduct business and gratified that we have maintained a strong reputation for nearly 50 years and are now in our third generation.  We strive to conduct ourselves with dignity and integrity and our track record is considered  to be a good one by our partners, lenders, collaborators and colleagues who have worked with us repeatedly and over the long term. 

THE SIVAN BUSINESS MODEL

We are, of course, a for-profit business.  Interestingly, we’ve taken a number of blighted sites and redeveloped them to create jobs, remediated environmental contamination, put properties back on the tax rolls that had been delinquent for years and otherwise made positive contributions to a number of properties in the District and elsewhere.  We rarely encounter community opposition and have worked well with our neighbors and local leaders.  

THE NEAM'S DEAL

As to the Neam property, we worked closely with one of the Neam’s family members to acquire the property and had excellent dealings with them throughout the process.  They were a pleasure to work with.  Their family chose to sell for a number of reasons and our family chose to buy for a number of reasons, but nobody’s objectives were to disrupt the community.  We believe we bought a great property with a lot of potential and are in the early planning stages as we evaluate a number of options.  

THE IDEAL TENANT

I am sure you can appreciate that landlords do not get to choose their tenants in a vacuum.  At any given time, there are a limited number of retail tenants seeking to expand in a particular market and fewer still whose space, location and design requirements fit with a particular vacant property.  Further, like any for-profit company, we must take into account a potential tenant’s financial condition, business plan and the amount of rent their business can support.  The costs of doing business in a market like Washington, DC and a neighborhood like Georgetown in particular are high and this limits the pool of suitable tenants.  I agree that this is unfortunate, but it is something beyond our control....We are in touch with a number of potential tenants and, included in that group, are a number of smaller gourmet grocery stores.  I am hopeful that we will be able to find a tenant that provides a welcome service to the community and also meets our financial objectives.

Our leasing agent works with a lot of chefs (Mike Isabella and Nathan Spittal are some of his clients).

SIVAN AND THEIR NEW GEORGETOWN NEIGHBORS

In the end, regardless of what we do, I recognize that not everyone is going to like us.  But, I’d prefer to have a dialogue with interested members of the community instead of interpreting our lack of public statements to mean that we have any harmful intentions....We are starting slowly and letting people know we want to hear their ideas. I spent over an hour on the phone last week with a local mom who runs a business in the neighborhood geared towards families while balancing a busy life with three young kids of her own.  She gave me some very good ideas and we both genuinely enjoyed the conversation and connected. 

HOW LOCALS CAN GET INVOLVED IN FINDING A TENANT THEY'LL PATRONIZE

It's really just a matter of sending any ideas and leads/contacts along that you think would be a good fit. Reminding the community that if they want to see a particular retailer come to the site, they can reach out to them and let them know of the demand.  The more potential customers ask a business to come to their neighborhood the better the odds.  Remember, signing a long term lease, investing capital into the property and running a business in today’s world all require a real commitment, a willingness to take risk and a true sense of optimism.  Or, put another way, it’s not for “wusses”. But if a business owner feels that the community really wants them there and will support them, it makes a huge difference. 

If you have any message you would like forwarded to Daniel, please send it to me and I will forward to him with your contact information.