James D. Kuhn joined Newmark Knight Frank as principal and president in 1992 after 15 years in partnership with Bernard Mendik as owner/manager, acquiring 11 million square feet of office space and 6,000 apartments. He then spent two years in partnership with Bear Stearns and Chuck Davidson of Steinhardt Partners, purchasing distressed assets from the RTC, FDIC and other financial institutions.
In 2008, Mr. Kuhn spearheaded Newmark Knight Frank's efforts in the formation of the Strategic Advisory Services group to assist financial institutions in the recovery of distressed assets. He has most recently been hired by Goldman Sachs (in their capacity as Lender) as an Asset Manager to assist in the operation of a 1.5 million square foot office building in midtown Manhattan. Mr. Kuhn has been appointed to the State of New York's Unified Court System as a qualified Receiver in eight New York counties.
During the course of his career, Mr. Kuhn has been advisor, broker or principal in over $3 billion in transactions for 25 million square feet of commercial and residential real estate. As an expert in the acquisition, leasing, management, repositioning and liquidation of major investments, Mr. Kuhn is also experienced in joint venture and equity financing. He has acted variously as merchant banker, de facto advisor, partner, and co-investor with such firms as Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs & Co. Inc., The Equitable Life Assurance Society, J.E. Robert Companies, Lennar-Morgan Stanley, and Steinhardt Partners. Additional advisory clients have included John Hancock, The New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority, American Stock Transfer, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Cultor Food Science Inc., Verizon, and AEG.
Over the past five years, Mr. Kuhn has formed a group specializing in advising hospitals, universities, and municipalities in the acquisition and disposition of their real estate assets. Mr. Kuhn's clients include Mt. Sinai Hospital, Brooklyn Hospital Center, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York University, and Hudson Yards Development Corporation, among others.
Mr. Kuhn began his career as a lender with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and then enjoyed a successful 15-year tenure as an owner/manager with The Mendik Company. He joined Mendik in 1978 as senior partner and executive vice president of acquisitions and development, later assuming the additional position of director of leasing. With Mendik, Mr. Kuhn was responsible for the acquisition/redevelopment of buildings such as 2 Penn Plaza, 11 Penn Plaza, 330 Madison Avenue, Two Park Avenue, 909 Third Avenue, 100 Church Street and 110 William Street. These were completed in partnership with institutions such as Equitable Life Assurance, Chase Investors, Shearson Hutton, Prudential, and Bear Stearns.
At The Mendik Company, Mr. Kuhn also supervised the land acquisition, zoning, and development of the Westport (CT) Corporate Office Park for United Technologies Corporation. He was responsible for leasing in excess of 1.5 million square feet in the Connecticut/Westchester area to tenants such as Exxon Chemical, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and Dun & Bradstreet. Other projects included transforming 866 United Nations Plaza into a specialized building for U.N. missions (Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Panama) and converting 20 Broad Street into the headquarters building for the N.Y. Stock Exchange and specialty firms that required proximity to the Exchange. As director of leasing, Mr. Kuhn negotiated and signed leases with IBM, Citibank, American Express, Times Mirror, Newsday, and Digital Equipment Corporation and others.
He has also represented and/or advised many corporations in their acquisitions of headquarters space or single occupancy buildings including, but not limited, to Equitable Life, Met Life, Brown Harris Stevens, Bertelsmann, Cultor Food Science, Mizuho/Fuji Bank, MTA, Verizon, and New York University.
Most recently, Mr. Kuhn has worked as a de facto advisor to, and in some cases co-invested with, Archon Capital and Whitehall (Goldman Sachs) and their mezzanine fund in the acquisition of 636 Eleventh Avenue, 1775 Broadway, 14 Wall Street, 1185 Avenue of the Americas, and 500-512 Seventh Avenue, representing a total of almost five million square feet of office space. That relationship began in Mr. Kuhn's days as executive vice president and principal of The Mendik Company (now part of Vornado) and expanded in the early 90s when Newmark Knight Frank served as an advisor for the J.E. Robert-Goldman Sachs venture, as well as for Lennar-Morgan Stanley, in the acquisition of bulk portfolios from the RTC and others. He has since advised clients including Apollo, Angelo Gordon, and Africa-Israel on the acquisition of commercial and residential assets.
Other transactions include:
- Representing New York University in a long-term lease for 130,000 square feet at 11 West 42nd Street.
- Acting as advisor to AmTrust Realty and ultimately repositioning 150 East 58th Street, 1370 Broadway, 250 Broadway, and 59 Maiden Lane.
- Representing the Applied Companies negotiating with Vornado in the joint venture development of high-end condominiums on the New Jersey waterfront.
- Acting as advisor to Goldman Sachs on their acquisition of a Jersey City site to develop two million square feet.
- Acting as advisor to Equitable on their 600,000-square-foot headquarters consolidation and relocation.
- Arranging the sale of numerous suburban office properties including the sale of Zurich potential headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.
- Acting as advisor to KW Partners and arranging, as co-investor in partnership with the Prudential Insurance c/o Strategic Fund, debt and equity financing of 240 West 41st Street adjacent to the New York Times' partnership with the Prudential Insurance c/o Strategic Fund potential new headquarters in.
- Arranging the sale of numerous development parcels including the joint venture of Bruce Brickman and Hal Fetner to develop 42nd Street and Tenth Avenue to rental apartments.
- Arranging the sale of 500 Fifth Avenue, a 700,000-square-foot Landmark Building to an offshore Mexican family.
- Representing Verizon in sale of multiple land sites in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Memberships:
- Chairman, Advisory Board, New York University Real Estate Institute
- Member, Board of Trustees and Board of Directors, National Jewish Medical and Research Center
- Member, Board of Trustees of Syracuse University
- Member, Advisory Board of the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University
- Member, Board of Trustees of Pratt Institute
- Member, Board of Directors for the March of Dimes
- Member, Board of Directors Kids Foundation for Developmental Diseases
- Member and Fellow, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS)
Endowments:
- James D. Kuhn Real Estate Center at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University
- Leo J. Kuhn Lobby for the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute
- The James and Marjorie Kuhn Program to Foster Diversity in Real Estate at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate
- James Kuhn Fund for Fencing at Stuyvesant High School
- James Kuhn Fund for Underprivileged Children for the San Antonio Fencing Club
Awards:
In 1994, Mr. Kuhn received the National Jewish Humanitarian Award and was guest of honor at the Real Estate & Construction Industries' annual Winter's Eve Ball, which benefited the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine.
Mr. Kuhn received the NYU "Real Estate Service Award of the Year" in 1984 and the "Young Man of the Year" Award presented by the Real Estate Board of New York in 1985.
Mr. Kuhn graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1965. He was captain of the fencing team, second place finisher in the tri-state championship, and member of the 1964 City Championship team. Mr. Kuhn went on to fence at Syracuse, winning tri-state championships in 1968 and finishing 12th in the country. Kuhn, after a 25 year absence, returned to fence in the Veterans division where he ranked 7th in the country by the time he retired in 2001.
Education:
Mr. Kuhn holds both a B.B.A. in Finance and an M.B.A. in Real Estate from Syracuse University. He recently endowed its new business school with the dean's office and established the Leo and Sunnie Kuhn Scholarship for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Syracuse Whitman School of Business.