Featured Broker – Steve Rappaport

Steve Rappaport, Senior Managing Director at Sinvin Real Estate, is a commercial real estate broker in Manhattan, specializing in retail and restaurant leasing. Steve represents both tenants and landlords.

Since joining Sinvin in 2006, Steve quickly became one of the top producers at this preeminent downtown commercial brokerage. His extensive knowledge of the city and the retail business benefits tenants and landlords alike. Years of practical experience in negotiating leases and in building out innumerable stores enables Steve to help clients smoothly navigate the process, and to realize successful transactions.

Steve ran two businesses in downtown Manhattan–a leather goods business for more than thirty years, and an ice cream business, Mary’s Dairy, for three years. Original Leather began in an historic sandal shop on West 4th Street in the Village where Bob Dylan wrote Positively Fourth Street, and grew into a seven store Luxury Leather and Shearling chain with a large celebrity clientele. The flagship store was on Spring Street in SoHo, with other units on Madison and Columbus Avenues.

Steve also created Mary’s Dairy, a high end, edgy ice cream store with locations in the West and East Village. An intense buzz ensued, with the stores garnering extensive media coverage and effusive praise from the food press. Mary’s Dairy’s loyal following packed the stores with lines flowing out of the door.

Steve’s forte as a retail real estate broker lies in effectively translating his familiarity with both the food and dry goods retail business to his task as a broker. Steve encourages landlords and tenants to see themselves as partners rather than adversaries. He has a knack for turning contentious situations into occasions for cooperation.

Steve grew up in New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, Queens College, and The New School for Social Research. After school he spent four years on Wall Street, working first at the New York Stock Exchange and then as a stock trader at Oppenheimer and Company. He spent the early 70’s traveling in Afghanistan, Crete, and California, and driving a cab in Manhattan. He opened his first store in 1975.