Company of the Month: The husband and wife team at Goldschmidt & Associates: The little real estate office that could; Brokered 250,000+ s/f of office space in N.Y.C., Greenwich/Stamford, CT., N.J., and Westchester Co.

Goldschmidt & Associates was established in August 1991 by husband and wife team Eric Goldschmidt and Pam Goldschmidt. Together the two worked days and evenings, many times with their young kids sitting in the back seat, driving south to mid-New Jersey and north to New Haven, Connecticut, seeking leasing and sales opportunities. Their first big break was searching for sites for a new wireless phone company, Cellular One, where locations were found in Secaucus, Long Island City, and White Plains. Their next big break was negotiating a lease for Barnes & Noble for a building on Central Park Ave., Hartsdale. It has been a non-stop trip since then. Both Eric and Pam come from divergent real estate backgrounds. Starting in 1968, Eric worked as an owner/manager of apartment buildings in the family business in New York and New Jersey. In 1973, he began as the general manager and vice president of Westcroft Realty, Hartsdale, a division of Rose Associates, Inc. of New York. There he branched out into commercial and retail properties as well as apartment buildings, and headed a huge expansion of owned properties and a multitude of conversions of apartment buildings into cooperatives. He left after 18 years to start his own company. At the same time, in the late 1980's, Pam began working in the N.Y.C. co-op/condo sales market. Wanting to be closer to her family in Westchester she began working on leasing retail spaces, which quickly culminated in her representation of K-Mart in the 1990 opening of the first warehouse club in Westchester County on Rte. 9A, Elmsford (currently Sam's Club). The Goldschmidt's, as a team, began to represent retailers such as Bank of New York, Webster Bank, Bruegger's Bagels, and ABS Clothing, amongst others. Pam began leasing retail space in the Village of Scarsdale and pretty soon virtually every owner retained her to lease up their available stores. It was then that Goldschmidt & Associates began to expand its owner representation countywide. At the same time, Eric also became more involved in the investments sales and commercial and industrial space leasing with large increases in activity annually thereafter. Goldschmidt & Associates expanded with the hiring of just a few active and ambitious real estate agents. It was at that time that Pam and Eric decided not to create a "big shop" office and manage people, but rather work together with their agents on leasing and sales deals. The formula has worked. The "Little Shop" now represents many retailers including CVS in Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess and Orange Counties. Notable deals include The Container Store, White Plains (first in the Northeast US); Crate & Barrel, Westport; Bed Bath & Beyond, Yonkers and Yorktown; Staples, Yorktown; California Pizza Kitchen, Scarsdale; Harley Davidson and Yamaha, New Rochelle; Volkswagen, White Plains; Lexus, Mt Kisco; TJ Maxx, Mt. Kisco and Yorktown; Kohl's, Home Goods, Big Lots, New Milford, CT amongst many, many others. Most recently deals include Saks Off Fifth, White Plains; Famous Footwear, Wells Fargo, 3 CVS locations in Yonkers, and Shreve Crump, Lowe, Greenwich, CT. In the past few years Goldschmidt & Associated has brokered more than 250,000 s/f of office space in N.Y.C., Greenwich and Stamford, CT., N.J., and Westchester County. Eric has represented Stark Office Suites on all of its leases and expansions in their 8 locations in the past 10 years. They now represent properties in Scarsdale, New Rochelle, Manhattan, White Plains, Mt. Vernon, Pelham, Eastchester, Yorktown, and Hartsdale. In addition, Goldschmidt & Associates is now involved in some major area residential and hotel development projects and commercial sales and leasing transactions with more updates to follow soon. The future is exciting as Pam and Eric's son, Adam Bren, has joined the team. With his law school background and learning the business "at his parents' feet" the next generation of Goldschmidt & Associates is bright. Along with agents Joshua Jacobs, JoAnn Picarillo, Fern Wager, Bill Gerstein, and Ken Shiers Goldschmidt & Associates' reputation as that "little real estate office which could" will continue to grow. To learn more check out their website, www.GA-RE.com and visit their booth 1205 at the NYC ICSC at the Javits Center.